A California appeals court has ordered a new sentencing hearing for former US film producer Harvey Weinstein while upholding his convictions for raping and sexually assaulting Russian-born model-actress Evgeniya Chernyshova. The original 16-year term was based “solely on an aggravating factor that no longer exists,” the court stated in a ruling on Friday.
The disgraced Hollywood movie mogul, who was accused of sexual misconduct by dozens of women, was sentenced in 2023 for “forcible oral copulation, sexual penetration by a foreign object and forcible rape” of the actress during a film festival in Los Angeles in 2013.
During that sentencing hearing, Weinstein maintained his innocence, calling the Siberian-born actress’ testimony a “made-up story,” and claiming that she “turned the tears on” when she wept in the courtroom.
Friday’s ruling states that although Weinstein raised “numerous contentions on appeal, including claims of evidentiary, instructional, prosecutorial, and sentencing error,” the court has rejected his “attempts to disturb the jury’s guilty verdicts,” while agreeing that he is entitled to a resentencing “because the court imposed an upper term sentence based on a now-invalid aggravating factor.”
The aggravating factor was Weinstein’s 2020 New York conviction, for which he was sentenced to 23 years in prison after being found guilty of raping former aspiring actress Jessica Mann and committing a criminal sexual act against former production assistant Miriam Haley. The trial judge relied on that conviction in imposing the maximum sentence in the Los Angeles case in 2023.
However, New York’s highest court overturned the 2020 judgment in 2024, ruling that testimony from women whose allegations were not part of the criminal charges had unfairly prejudiced the jury. Prosecutors retried Weinstein, but two subsequent retrials ended with hung juries on the rape charge involving Mann.
Notably, on Thursday, New York prosecutors abandoned plans to try him a fourth time after Mann said she could not endure testifying again. Weinstein is still awaiting sentencing on his conviction for the sexual assault of Haley, with prosecutors seeking a 20-year prison term.
Weinstein’s original 16-year California sentence was set to immediately follow the 23-year prison term he was then serving in New York. However, with that conviction overturned and the California sentence vacated, his total prison term has yet to be finalized. Weinstein remains incarcerated on Riker’s Island in New York City.
Source - Publisher: RT