Harvey Weinstein loses appeal in California sexual assault conviction
A California appeals court has upheld Harvey Weinstein's 2022 sexual assault conviction but ordered a new sentencing hearing.
Harvey Weinstein loses appeal in California sexual assault conviction
A California appeals court has rejected an effort to overturn Harvey Weinstein's sexual assault conviction. The three-judge panel upheld the former Hollywood producer's 2022 guilty verdict on Friday but ordered that a new sentence be imposed.
At the Los Angeles trial in December 2022, Weinstein was found guilty of sexual offenses across three counts, including rape. The allegations came from four women and spanned a period from 2004 to 2013. Most of the assaults were said to have occurred at hotels in Beverly Hills. In February 2023, he received a prison term of 16 years for these crimes.
His legal team filed an appeal seeking to have the conviction thrown out. They argued, among other things, that witness questioning during the proceedings had been unfair. The appeals court dismissed this argument but sent the case back to the original judge, who had imposed a maximum sentence of eight years on one of the counts. That judge is now required to set a new punishment.
Weinstein's spokesman, Juda Engelmayer, announced that the defense intends to take the matter to California's Supreme Court.
The California ruling came one day after developments emerged in a separate case against Weinstein in New York. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office stated on Thursday that, following discussions with actress Jessica Mann—who accuses Weinstein of rape—the decision was made not to retry that specific charge.
Weinstein had been accused of raping Mann in a Manhattan hotel in 2013. In a 2020 trial that centered primarily on two complainants, he was sentenced to 23 years in prison. However, that conviction was unexpectedly overturned in 2024 due to procedural errors. The case was retried twice afterward, but juries were unable to reach a verdict on the Mann charge on either occasion. In 2025, New York jurors did find that Weinstein had committed serious sexual offenses against a different woman. Sentencing in that case is scheduled for September.
Since 2017, more than 80 women have publicly accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct. The former film executive has denied all allegations in court. His attorneys maintain that any sexual encounters were consensual.
Source: Der Spiegel