THE NEW YORK TIMES: Harvey Weinstein, who fuelled #MeToo movement, sentenced to 15 years for sex crime case

Harvey Weinstein, the former Hollywood mogul whose downfall fuelled the #MeToo movement, was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison for a felony sex crime, bringing an end to his criminal case in New York.

Weinstein, 74, was convicted last year of committing a criminal sexual act against a former production assistant, Miriam Haley, in a bedroom in his SoHo apartment in 2006. Manhattan prosecutors had asked for a 20-year sentence. His lawyers had asked for a sentence of nine years.

In sentencing the former movie producer, Judge Curtis Farber of state Supreme Court in Manhattan said Weinstein had been “king in an industry” that many aspired to succeed in and that he had played an outsize role in determining whose dreams would flourish and whose would be crushed.

However, Weinstein will not be remembered for being a Hollywood star-maker, the judge said. Instead, he will be remembered “as the man who a great woman finally stood up against and said no means no,” Judge Farber said.

The sentence Wednesday represented another significant moment in the nearly decade-long legal saga of allegations against Weinstein, once a titan in the film industry whose name became synonymous in recent years with the #MeToo movement, which called for accountability against powerful people accused of sexual harassment and assault.

When Weinstein was first on trial for sex crimes in New York in 2020, it was seen as the culmination of the movement. And the public attention was immense.

Throughout his trial, Weinstein had to navigate throngs of cameras and protesters. Inside the courtroom, the gallery overflowed with reporters prepared to broadcast every moment of his trial.

His conviction was hailed as a watershed moment and a hard-fought legal victory.

In the years since, as Weinstein’s cases in New York and California worked their way through the courts, the prominence of the movement waned from public discourse.

Weinstein’s lawyers bet that the effects of the #MeToo movement on America’s culture — including its politics and entertainment industry — had faded.

But Weinstein was back in a courtroom in lower Manhattan on Wednesday asking Judge Farber for mercy.

“I am not a perfect person,” he said. He added that he apologised to those he might have hurt through his actions.

“I do have remorse for Miriam Haley’s pain,” Weinstein said. “But I have to reiterate my innocence.”

Ms Haley, who also spoke in court, said at a news conference after the hearing that she viewed the sentence the judge imposed as fair.

Still, she said: “For me, personally, it’s never going to be fair.”

Haley’s case centres on an encounter that took place in Manhattan 20 years ago. Weinstein invited her to “say hi” at his apartment in SoHo in July 2006, she has said in court, the night before they were scheduled to attend a premiere in Los Angeles.

Shortly after she arrived, Ms Haley said, Weinstein backed her into a bedroom, forced her onto a bed, held her down and forced her to let him perform oral sex.

Haley initially testified against Weinstein six years ago, in a trial that led to his first conviction in New York. But an appeals court overturned that verdict four years later, ruling that Weinstein had been deprived of a fair trial. The judges ordered a new one.

In a second trial last year, he was again convicted on a single count of committing a criminal sexual act against Haley. But the jury was unable to reach a verdict on another charge and acquitted Weinstein of a third count. Farber ordered a new trial and said he would wait for the outcome of that trial to sentence Weinstein.

At a third trial this year, the new jury also became deadlocked on the count accusing Weinstein of raping a former aspiring actress, Jessica Mann.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office, led by Alvin Bragg, moved to dismiss the remaining charge against Weinstein and said it would not seek to retry him.

In a statement following Weinstein’s sentencing, Mr Bragg said, “today was about the survivors”.

“Ms Haley, her remarks were powerful, moving and eloquent,” he said. “I thank her first and foremost, and all of the survivors who came to lend their support”

In her statement in court, Ms Haley said that in the years since she came forward she had dealt with ridicule in the news media, been followed by private investigators and been left “questioning every encounter I have”.

She thought about pulling out of the case several times, she said, calling the process of going through testifying for two trials “the worst decision of my life”.

She said she had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder because of Weinstein’s actions.

“I have been further traumatised in exercising my right to hold him accountable,” she said.

As Haley spoke, at times her voice breaking, several of the women who have also accused Weinstein of wrongdoing nodded along.

“It has often felt that I was the one on trial,” Haley told Farber.

The allegations of abuse against Weinstein, first reported by The New York Times and The New Yorker in 2017, touched off the #MeToo movement and soon saw him toppled from his powerful position in the film and television industries.

Public pressure, renewed conversations about Weinstein’s past conduct and a swell of new accusations against him led the district attorney’s office, then led by Cyrus Vance Jr., to charge him with sex crimes in 2018.

Weinstein has been convicted of similar charges in California and was sentenced to 16 years in prison there. However, in June, an appellate court ruled that Weinstein would have to be resentenced.

Weinstein has pleaded not guilty to all the charges he has faced in New York and California, and his lawyers have argued that although he may have had relations with the women, he never assaulted them.

In court Wednesday, Nicole Blumberg, an assistant district attorney, said Weinstein “has never shown an ounce of remorse and refuses to accept responsibility for the crime”.

Instead, she said, he targeted Ms Haley and other witnesses with online harassment and cast himself as the victim.

Weinstein continued his campaign from the Rikers Island jail complex, offering $1.75 million to a podcaster to release stories that were aimed at contaminating the jury pool before and after a trial, Ms Blumberg said.

In their own statements, Weinstein’s lawyers, Jacob Kaplan and Marc Agnifilo, argued that their client’s advanced age, his bevy of health issues and the fact that he had been in jail or prison for six years, calls for a sentence of nine years.

Weinstein takes 20 medications a day to manage blood cancer, congestive heart failure and kidney disease, among other health issues, Mr Kaplan said.

If you or someone you know needs help, contact 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732), or Sexual Assault Counselling Australia on 1800 211 028, the WA Sexual Assault Resource Centre on 6458 1828 or 1800 199 888 or Lifeline on 13 11 14.