Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison Wednesday for sexual assault. His next stop is likely to be a maximum-security prison an hour north of the lower Manhattan courtroom in which his punishment will be pronounced.
Weinstein, who became an emblem of the #MeToo movement as waves of women accused him of harassing or attacking them over the years, was convicted last month of forcing oral sex on production assistant Miriam Haley and raping Jessica Mann, who wanted to be an actor.
The maximum total penalty was 29 years. Weinstein, 67, has asked New York State Supreme Court Justice James Burke for five, citing his age and failing health. Weinstein, who has been jailed since his conviction, arrived in court shortly after 9:30 a.m. in New York, handcuffed to his wheelchair. Court officers removed the cuffs as sentencing got underway.
Weinstein Compares #MeToo to McCarthy Era (10:58 a.m.)
Harvey Weinstein addressed the court in the final moments before sentencing, warning of a “crisis” in America that he compared with the McCarthy era.
“I’m worried about this country,” he began. “We are going through this crisis right now in our country, it started basically with me. I was the first example and now there are many men who have been accused of abuse, something I think that none of us understood.”
“It is not the right atmosphere for the United States of America,” he said. “Everybody is on some kind of blacklist. I had no power. Miramax was a small company. I couldn’t blackball anybody.”
“I think possibly men like myself, like Dalton Trumbo -- they said they were Communists, and now there’s a scare, just like that now.”
Weinstein’s Lawyer Says He Didn’t Get a Fair Trial (10:52 a.m.)
Defense attorney Damon Cheronis called a letter prosecutors filed with the court Friday arguing for a harsh sentence “a laundry list of unsubstantiated allegations that have not been vetted” and said the judge shouldn’t consider those uncharged crimes in fashioning Weinstein’s sentence.
“I read the letter through the very same prism that you saw it through,” Burke told Cheronis.
Lead defense lawyer Donna Rotunno then argued that a report by probation officials includes errors and misstates testimony and asked Burke to disregard it.