Spencer Platt/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Former movie producer Harvey Weinstein was sentenced Wednesday in a New York City courtroom to 23 years in prison for his convictions on rape and sexual assault.
Manhattan Supreme Court Judge James Burke sentenced Weinstein to 20 years for criminal sexual assault for forcing oral sex on Miriam Haley. That sentence will run consecutively with a three-year sentence for the third-degree rape of Jessica Mann.
Burke also deemed Weinstein a sexual predator and told him he would be evaluated for a sexual predator risk level at a later date.
All six of Weinstein’s accusers were present for sentencing: Annabella Sciorra, Tarale Wulff, Jessica Mann, Mimi Haley, Lauren Young and Dawn Dunning, as well as supporting witness Rosie Perez.
In pre-sentencing comments, Haley and Mann described how Weinstein’s crimes against them continue to affect their lives.
“I believe that if Harvey Weinstein was not convicted by this jury, it would happen again and again and again,” Haley declared, asking for a sentence that is “long enough that Harvey Weintein can acknowledges what he’s done to me and to other sands to be truly sorry.” The latter sentiment was echoed my Mann.
In comments he delivered prior to his sentencing, Weinstein, 67, who arrived in court in a wheelchair, declared that he was “totally confused” by the #MeToo movement, which he appeared to compare to McCarthyism. He also said he was worried about “thousands of men who are losing due process.”
Weinstein also cast himself as more empathetic than he was when he was first accused. He said he hasn’t seen his eldest three children since the New Yorker article, published on 2017, that first brought his then-alleged crimes to a wider audience.
But prosecutors asked for the maximum sentence allowed by law, describing Weinstein as a powerful figure whose “criminality…has gone unchecked for decades,” and who “has been using and abusing people his entire life.”
Weinstein, who’s been accused of sexual misconduct and assault by dozens of women, faced a maximum of 29 years in prison.
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.