MANHATTAN (CN) — More than two years after allegations of a decades-long pattern of sexual predation upended his Hollywood legacy, Harvey Weinstein was found guilty Monday on two of the less serious counts against him.
While acquitted on rape in the first degree and two counts of predatory sexual assault, the 67-year-old producer was convicted just before noon this morning of committing a criminal sexual act and rape in the third degree.
Weinstein faces 4 to 25 years in prison, with sentencing set for March 11. He had been free on bail since his 2018 arrest, but the producer was remanded into custody by Justice James Burke following the verdict Monday. As court officers escorted him out of the room, Weinstein walked with a heavy limp, leaving behind the walker he has taken to court every day.
The verdict came on the fifth day of deliberations in Manhattan Supreme Court, from a jury consisting of seven men — six of them white and one black — as well as five women, two black, two white and one Latina. On Friday, the jury sent a note indicating that they were deadlocked on counts one and three — both of which they found him not guilty of today. On the remaining counts, the jury said Friday they had reached a unanimous verdict.
The verdict came around 11:30 Monday morning, announced by the male jury foreperson, who wore a black shirt and a bow tie. February sunshine blasted through the courtroom windows onto a wan Weinstein, who sat hunched in his chair as the jurors filed in and then out, most without glancing at him. Multiple court officers stood behind Weinstein in the well, joined by over a dozen others posted near doors and along the walls of the courtroom.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance celebrated the mixed verdict in a courthouse press conference, praising the female prosecutors and the witnesses in the case as women “who have changed the course of history in the fight against sexual violence.
"These are eight women who pulled our criminal justice system into the 21st century, by declaring that rape is rape and sexual assault is sexual assault, no matter what," Vance said.
Thanking his team and the jury, as well as the survivors of Weinstein’s violence, Vance called Weinstein a “vicious serial sexual predator.
“These survivors weren’t just brave — they were heroic,” the district attorney said. Weinstein “did everything he could to silence the survivors, but they refused to be silenced," he continued. "They spoke from their hearts, and they were heard.”
The two counts of predatory sexual assault were class A-II felonies that would have carried a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life term of imprisonment. Aspiring actress Jessica Mann and former "Project Runway" production assistant Mimi Haleyi were the complaining accusers behind those accounts, but prosecutors sought to establish a pattern by eliciting testimony from four women including "Sopranos" actress Annabella Sciorra about their own encounters.
Ultimately the jury found Weinstein guilty of rape in the third degree against Mann and of assaulting Haleyi in 2006. Deliberations last week featured a re-reading of Sciorra's trial testimony as well as a re-reading of the corroborating testimony from Sciorra's friend Rosie Perez.
When asked whether he was disappointed with the mixed verdict, Vance said he was not. He called the case challenging and said that it had shattered myths around sexual assault.