Disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein begged “please don’t sentence me to life in prison, I don’t deserve it” as he was jailed for another 16 years for rape and sexual assault.
Weinstein, 70, will serve the jail term after completing his 23-year-sentence for a sexual misconduct conviction in New York in 2020.
It is therefore highly possible he will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Weinstein begged for leniency as he was handed the latest sentence in a Los Angeles court today.
He was sentenced for the rape of an actress, named only in court as Jane Doe 1, at a hotel in Los Angeles in 2013.
A jury found him guilty in December of rape, forcible oral copulation and sexual penetration by a foreign object.
Weinstein said: “This is a made up story. Jane Doe 1 is an actress. She can turn the tears on.
More from US
“Please don’t sentence me to life in prison. I don’t deserve it. There are so many things wrong with this case.
“There are too many loopholes. Too many things wrong with this case.
Advertisement
“This is a set-up. This is not the way to act in this situation.”
He finally added: “I beg your mercy.”
Dave Ring, a lawyer for Jane Doe 1, said after the verdict: “The sentencing today provides Jane Doe 1 with closure and relief, knowing Weinstein will spend the rest of his life in prison where he belongs.
“It took tremendous courage for Jane Doe 1 and the other victims to come forward and testify… Weinstein is out of options.”
Weinstein spokesperson slams ‘cruel sentence’
A lawyer for another of Weinstein’s victims said afterwards that the disgraced producer will now spend the rest of his life in prison “where he belongs”.
Weinstein, once one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood, has said all of his sexual encounters had been consensual and pleaded not guilty in the Los Angeles case.
Prosecutors called for a “high-term” penalty of 24 years because of the prior conviction, rather than a “mid-term” sentence of 18 years that California law would otherwise prescribe.
Louisette Geiss, one of Weinstein’s accusers, said after the verdict: “While I am disappointed that Judge Lench did not sentence Harvey Weinstein to the maximum of 18 years, no amount of time in jail will erase the damage Weinstein has caused to the lives and careers of his survivors, including me.”
Weinstein’s team opposed the district attorney’s recommendation for a high-term, consecutive sentence, given Weinstein’s “advanced age and deteriorating health”.
A spokesperson for Weinstein said after the verdict: “It’s a cruel sentence, given his age, his health and the conditions of his conviction in Los Angeles, when the sole charge was from a person who lied, with the judge and prosecutor well aware of it and permitting it, about critical elements of her own claim. It’s not justice, but a pile on for a man many people just decided should be cast off and discarded regardless of facts.”
The jury acquitted Weinstein of charges relating to a second alleged victim and failed to reach a unanimous verdict on charges arising from two other accusers.
One of them, documentary filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom, now the wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom, had disclosed she was the alleged rape victim referred to in court records as Jane Doe 4.
Weinstein appealing New York conviction
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench declared a mistrial on the deadlocked charges.
Defence attorneys argued that the women willingly had sex with Weinstein because they believed he would advance their careers, part of what they said was a widespread “casting couch” culture in the film industry.
In two of the cases, they said the alleged sexual contact was fabricated.
Weinstein was convicted of sexual misconduct in New York in February 2020.
He was extradited from New York to Los Angeles prison in July 2021.
Weinstein is appealing the New York conviction and prison sentence.
Allegations against Weinstein helped fuel the #MeToo movement, which has encouraged women to speak out about sexual harassment and abuse by powerful men in certain industries.
The movement, which went viral on social media in 2017, seeks to break a culture of silence that has long allowed such conduct to go unchallenged.
Bodycam footage showing prison officers fatally beating an inmate has been released by New York’s attorney general.
Prison officers at Marcy Correctional Facility in New York punched and kicked 43-year-old Robert Brooks repeatedly while he was handcuffed on an infirmary bed.
He died in hospital on 10 December, a day after the attack.
The incident has drawn outrage from political leaders and was condemned by the prison officers’ union as “incomprehensible”, according to Sky News’ partner newsroom NBC.
It is now being investigated by state attorney general Letitia James, who called the videos “shocking and disturbing” at a virtual news conference.
In the video, Mr Brooks is in handcuffs as he is carried into the infirmary by several prison guards.
They put him on the bed and begin repeatedly punching and kicking him.
He is pulled upright, where his bloodied face is visible on camera, and then yanked from the bed by his shirt collar and pushed up against a window.
One of the fourteen workers involved in the incident has resigned and the rest have been suspended without pay until the process to fire them is complete. The workers include correctional officers, sergeants and a prison nurse.
The officers had not activated their body cameras but they were still on and recorded in standby mode, without audio, during the attack.
As a result of the incident, all officers will now need to have their cameras activated any time they are engaging directly with prisoners.
Mr Brooks’ family thanked officials for taking action “to hold officers accountable” in a statement this week.
“We cannot understand how this could have happened in the first place,” the family said. “No one should have to lose a family member this way.”
The attack happened before 9.30pm on 9 December in a medical exam room after Mr Brooks had been transferred from the Mohawk Correctional Facility to Marcy Correctional Facility.
An autopsy found “preliminary findings show concern for asphyxia due to compression of the neck as the cause of death, as well as the death being due to actions of another,” according to a state corrections office investigative report obtained by an affiliate of Sky News’ partner newsroom WKTV in Utica.
Mr Brooks had been behind bars since 2017 on a 12-year sentence for first-degree assault involving a longtime girlfriend.
Officials declined to say why he had been transferred to the Marcy Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison.
Last year, an independent prison oversight group called The Correctional Association of New York released a report on the Marcy Correctional Facility.
It noted complaints of “rampant” physical abuse by staff members, with 80% of incarcerated people reporting having witnessed or experienced abuse and nearly 70% reporting racial discrimination or bias.
In response to the video, the union that represents workers at the prison said: “What we witnessed is incomprehensible to say the least and is certainly not reflective of the great work that the vast majority of our membership conducts every day.”
It adding what transpired is the “opposite of everything [the union] and its membership stand for.”
The world’s best golfer has suffered a freak injury while cooking Christmas dinner, forcing him to undergo surgery.
Scottie Scheffler sustained a puncture wound after cutting the palm of his right hand on broken glass.
The world number one required surgery as small glass fragments remained in the palm after the accident.
The injury has forced him out of the first tournament of the season, next week’s The Sentry in Hawaii.
But the 28-year-old has been told he will recover in three to four weeks, and he hopes to be back in action at The American Express tournament in California on 16 January.
Scheffler won an Olympic gold and seven PGA Tour titles in the last year and was recently named PGA Tour’s Player of the Year for a third season in a row.
In May, he was arrested by police during the US PGA Championship after he was accused of trying to drive around a traffic jam caused by a fatal accident.
More from US
Just hours later, he was released and allowed to return to Valhalla Golf Club in Kentucky to play his second round of the tournament.
Criminal charges against Scheffler were later dismissed due to a lack of evidence and a police officer who arrested him was disciplined for not having his bodycam on at the time of the incident.
The man accused of burning a woman to death on a New York subway train has been indicted on murder and arson charges.
Sebastian Zapeta is accused of setting a sleeping woman on fire and then fanning the flames with a shirt, which caused her to be engulfed by the blaze.
He allegedly sat on a platform at Brooklyn’s Coney Island station, opposite the stopped train, and watched as she burned to death.
Authorities are still working to identify the victim.
Zapeta, 33, has been charged with one count of first degree murder, two counts of second degree murder and one count of arson in the first degree.
After a brief hearing in which the indictment was announced, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said: “This was a malicious deed. A sleeping, vulnerable woman on our subway system.”
Mr Gonzalez said police and medical examiners are using fingerprints and advanced DNA techniques to identify the victim, while also retracing her steps before the murder.
“Our hearts go out not only to this victim, but we know that there’s a family,” he said. “Just because someone appears to have been living in the situation of homelessness does not mean that there’s not going to be family devastated by the tragic way she lost her life.”
Such filings are often a first step in the criminal process because all felony cases in New York require a grand jury indictment to proceed to trial, unless a defendant waives that requirement.
Zapeta was not present at the hearing. The most serious charge he is facing carries a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole and the indictment will be unsealed on 7 January.
Zapeta is a Guatemalan who entered the US illegally having already been deported in 2018, officials say.
He was taken into custody last Sunday, after three children called 911 when they recognised him from an image shared by police.
During questioning, prosecutors say he claimed not to know what happened, and noted he consumes alcohol – but did identify himself in photos and videos showing the fire being lit.