Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has been found guilty of rape and sexual assault in his latest criminal trial.
The Los Angeles Jury found him guilty of raping and sexually assaulting an Italian actress and model, acquitted him of one sexual battery charge from a massage therapist, and deadlocked on three more sexual assault charges from two other women.
70-year-old Weinstein is already two years into a 23-year rape and sexual assault sentence in New York. The Los Angeles verdict, reached after a monthlong trial and nine days of jury deliberation, will likely add decades to his incarceration.
The Italian actress, identified as Jane Doe 1, said she hopes "Weinstein never sees the outside of a prison cell during his lifetime," and she is likely to get her wish. "Harvey Weinstein forever destroyed a part of me that night in 2013 and I will never get that back," she said. "The criminal trial was brutal and Weinstein's lawyers put me through hell on the witness stand, but I knew I had to see this through to the end, and I did."
Some of the most emotional testimony of the trial came from Ms Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker who is now married to the governor of California, Gavin Newsom.
Ms Siebel Newsom testified that Weinstein assaulted and raped her during what she thought would be a business meeting in a hotel in 2005, when she was a young actor and producer still trying to find her way in the industry. Ms Siebel Newsom wept repeatedly on the stand, calling the alleged attack “her worst nightmare”, and faced an aggressive cross-examination from Weinstein’s defence, who presented her as someone who had engaged in consensual sex to advance her career, and, in their opening statement, referred to her as a “bimbo.”
The jury could not reach a verdict on whether Weinstein forcibly raped and assaulted Ms Siebel Newsom, resulting in a mistrial on those charges, and also could not reach a verdict on whether Weinstein had assaulted Jane Doe 2, another young model and aspiring screenwriter in a bathroom, after what she thought would be a business meeting.
Weinstein's initial convictions came after allegations emerged against the former owner of the Weinstein Company back in 2018 in a major development of the MeToo movement.
One woman who testified at both Weinstein trials said she had met him about a script in 2013 when he trapped her in a hotel bathroom and performed a sex act in front of her.