NEW YORK – Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein was found guilty by a Manhattan jury Monday on two of five charges relating to sexual assaults. As a result, the motion picture mogul faces as many as 25 years in prison.
He was found guilty of a criminal sex act for assaulting production assistant Mimi Haleyi at his apartment in 2006 and third-degree rape of a woman in 2013. The jury found him not guilty on the most serious charge, predatory sexual assault, that could have resulted in a life sentence. He was remanded to custody by the judge immediately after the conviction.
The verdict followed weeks of often harrowing and excruciatingly graphic testimony from a string of accusers who told of rapes, forced oral sex, groping, masturbation, lewd propositions and that’s-Hollywood excuses from Weinstein about how the casting couch works.
The jury of seven men and five women handed down the verdict on Monday after five days of deliberating, Fox News reported.
As expected, Weinstein chose not to testify, avoiding the risk of having prosecutors grill him on cross-examination about the vile allegations. He confirmed the decision on Feb. 11 after returning to the courtroom from meeting with his lawyers behind closed doors for about a half-hour as speculation swirled that he was pushing to testify.
Defense lawyer Arthur Aidala added that Weinstein “was ready, willing, able and actually quite anxious to testify and clear his name” but didn’t do so because his lawyers felt prosecutors ”failed miserably” to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Sentencing was set for March 11.
