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.
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“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.
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“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.
BBC presenter Lauren Laverne has said she has been given the “all clear” after being diagnosed with cancer.
The 46-year-old said in a post on social media that she will return to work next week on The One Show and has been working on new episodes of BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs.
She said she is set to also return to her 6 Music show in the new year.
She has not specified what type of cancer she had.
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Thanking medical staff, friends and all those who sent her get well wishes, Laverne said on Sunday she would most like to thank her husband Graeme and her two children, who she said have been “absolutely extraordinary throughout”.
“It’s been a difficult time but one that has taught me so much about what really matters,” she wrote.
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“I can’t say I suddenly regretted never having hiked the Inca Trail, more that I now see more beauty in ordinary things than I could have imagined, and feel more than ever that the small things in life – the connections we make and care we take with each other – are the big things really.”
A new episode of Desert Island Discs is due to air on 1 December, and will be a pre-recorded interview with comedian Mark Steel that is believed to have been done by Laverne before she went on leave.
She will return to record more episodes as well as Christmas editions of the series over the next few weeks.
A BBC spokeswoman said: “We’re delighted to welcome Lauren back to the studio this month for The One Show and Desert Island Discs, with new episodes airing on Radio 4 from 1 December, and we look forward to welcoming Lauren back to BBC Radio 6 Music in the new year.”
Zayn Malik paid tribute to former One Direction bandmate Liam Payne as he kicked off his solo tour.
Payne died last month of multiple traumas and “internal and external haemorrhage” after falling from a third-floor balcony in Buenos Aires, according to a post-mortem.
Images from Leeds’s O2 Academy on Saturday showed Malik – who delayed his Stairway To The Sky tour due to Payne’s funeral on Wednesday – shared a tribute.
A message was displayed with a heart on a large blue screen behind the singer reading: “Liam Payne 1993-2024. Love you bro.”
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Rapper Ye – formerly known as Kanye West – has been accused of sexual assault in a civil lawsuit that alleges he strangled a model on the set of a music video.
Warning: This story contains details that readers may find distressing
The lawsuit alleges the musician shoved his fingers in the claimant’s mouth at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City in 2010, in what it refers to as “pornographic gagging”, Sky News’ US partner network NBC News reported.
The model who brought the case – which was filed on Friday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York – was a background actor for another musician’s music video that Ye was guest-starring in, NBC said, citing the lawsuit.
She is seeking compensatory and punitive damages against the 47-year-old.
A representative for Ye was approached for comment by NBC News on Saturday.
The New York City Police Department said it took “sexual assault and rape cases extremely seriously, and urges anyone who has been a victim to file a police report so we can perform a comprehensive investigation, and offer support and services to survivors”.
The lawsuit alleges that a few hours into the shoot, the rapper arrived on set, took over control and ordered “female background actors/models, including the claimant, to line up in the hallway”.
The rapper is then believed to have “evaluated their appearances, pointed to two of the women, and then commanded them to follow him”.
The lawsuit adds the claimant, who was said to be wearing “revealing lingerie”, was uncomfortable but went with Ye to a suite which had a sofa and a camera.
When in the room, Ye is said to have ordered the production team to start playing the music, to which he did not know his lyrics and instead rambled, “rawr, rawr, rawr”.
The lawsuit claims: “Defendant West then pulled two chairs near the camera, positioned them across from each other, and instructed the claimant to sit in the chair in front of the camera.”
While stood over the model, the lawsuit clams Ye strangled her with both hands, according to NBC.
It claims he went on to “emulate forced oral sex” with his hands, with the rapper allegedly screaming: “This is art. This is f****** art. I am like Picasso.”
Universal Music Group is also named in the lawsuit as a defendant and is accused of failing to investigate the incident.
The corporation did not immediately respond to a request for comment by NBC.
Jesse S Weinstein, a lawyer representing the claimant, said the woman “displayed great courage to speak out against some of the most powerful men and entities within the entertainment industry”.