LOS ANGELES (AP) — Harvey Weinstein may see the lengthy jail time period he’s already serving practically doubled at his California sentencing, bringing the onetime film magnate and lord of the Oscars to a brand new low after convictions for rape and sexual assault.
Except she grants a protection movement for a brand new trial, Superior Courtroom Choose Lisa B. Lench is scheduled to condemn the 70-year-old Weinstein in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom on Thursday. She may give him as much as 18 years in jail. He has greater than 20 years left on his sentence in New York after a 2020 conviction there.
Jurors in December convicted Weinstein of 1 rely of rape and two counts of sexual assault towards an Italian mannequin and actor throughout a 2013 movie competition within the run-up to that yr’s Academy Awards. The jury spared Weinstein a fair longer sentence after they acquitted him of the sexual battery of a therapeutic massage therapist and failed to achieve verdicts on counts involving two different girls.
The sufferer whose dramatic testimony led to the responsible counts might make a press release on the toll the assault has taken on her.
Final week, Lench rejected a request from Gloria Allred, an legal professional for among the girls who testified at trial, to permit others to make related statements in court docket concerning the man who has for 5 years been a magnet for the #MeToo motion.
“I’m not going to make this an open discussion board on Mr. Weinstein’s conduct,” Lench stated.
The Related Press doesn’t usually identify individuals who say they’ve been sexually assaulted.
The decide will first hear arguments over a protection movement that Weinstein needs to be given a brand new trial or have his verdict diminished. Weinstein’s legal professionals say Lench’s rejection of proof they wished to make use of at trial proved prejudicial to him.
The protection attorneys argue that they should have been allowed to introduce personal Fb messages that confirmed there was a sexual relationship between the Italian girl and Pascal Vicedomini, director of the Los Angeles Italia Movie Competition, which she was attending when she stated the assault occurred.
The movement says the messages would have proven that each had been mendacity underneath oath after they testified that they had been merely mates and colleagues. The court docket submitting additionally says that such a relationship would have made it unlikely that Vicedomini would give Weinstein the variety of her lodge room, the place based on her testimony Weinstein appeared uninvited. And it says the messages would have bolstered the legal professionals’ rivalry the lady was spending the night time with Vicedomini at one other lodge on that night time.
The protection argued of their closing that the 2 had a sexual relationship, however Lench allowed jurors to see solely the messages between them that established her timing and placement.
The regulation provides Lench “the singular duty of setting proper these prejudicial errors which frequently turn into obvious solely with the advantage of hindsight,” the legal professionals wrote within the movement.
Lench has stated she’s going to transfer ahead with the sentencing instantly if she rejects the protection movement.
However authorized uncertainties will stay on each coasts for Weinstein.
New York’s highest court docket has agreed to listen to his attraction in his rape and sexual assault convictions there. And prosecutors in Los Angeles have but to say whether or not they’ll retry Weinstein on counts they had been unable to achieve a verdict on.
It’s not but clear the place he’ll serve his time whereas these points are determined.
His New York sentence can be served earlier than a California jail time period, although a retrial or different points may hold him from being despatched again there quickly.
Weinstein is eligible for parole in New York in 2039.
