Los Angeles Jury Adds to Harvey Weinstein’s Convictions – A Los Angeles jury found disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein guilty Monday of three sex crimes related to his rape of a Russian-Italian model, compounding the sentencing exposure he faced from his New York convictions.
The mixed verdict fell short of a wholesale victory for prosecutors: Jurors acquitted him of another crime and deadlocked on the remaining three.
Former film producer Harvey Weinstein interacts with his attorney Mark Werksman in court at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center on October 4, 2022 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Etienne Laurent-Pool/Getty Images)
Los Angeles Jury Adds to Harvey Weinstein’s Convictions
Jurors acquitted Weinstein of sexually battery by restraint related to Jane Doe 3, who is Juls Bindi, a Hollywood masseuse who said Weinstein touched her breast while masturbating in front of her after a massage in 2010.
They hung on Weinstein’s three other charges, as well as a misdemeanor charge prosecutors included as a lesser alternative to Bindi’s sexual battery charge. They split 10-2 in favor of guilty on sexual battery by restraint involving Jane Doe 2, who said Weinstein groped her breast while masturbating in front of her at the Montage hotel in Beverly Hills, also in February 2013. They also split 8-4 in favor of guilty for forced oral copulation and forcible rape of Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who is the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D).
Announced about 3:40 p.m. in Los Angeles, the verdict follows about 40 hours of deliberation over 9 1/2 days. Judge Lisa B. Lench declared a mistrial for the remaining counts after jurors said further deliberations wouldn’t help. Prosecutors have not said how they’ll proceed.
Already serving a 23-year sentence for sex crimes convictions out of New York, Weinstein crossed his hands and rested his face on them after Judge Lench’s clerk read the guilty counts for Jane Doe 1’s charges. But his mood appeared to lighten when the clerk announced jurors had found enhancements involving multiple victims not to be true, which was a sure sign he wasn’t going to be convicted on the other counts.
Weinstein’s lawyers, Mark Werksman and Alan Jackson, declined to comment as they left court, as did Deputy District Attorneys Paul Thompson and Marlene Martinez. The verdict followed deliberations that included jury notes handled by Judge Lench privately with the attorneys over the phone, instead of in open court as generally happens in trials.
Jurors began deliberating on Friday, Dec. 2, getting a couple hours in before returning for their first full day on Dec. 5. Journalists learned days later that jurors asked their first question on Dec. 6.
Lench would not allow the public to know what the question said, issuing an order that said she believes doing so would interfere with ongoing deliberations. She also declined to release the contents of another question the jury sent on Dec. 9.
The trial opened on Oct. 24 this year. Prosecutors called 44 witnesses, including eight women testified about alleged sexual assaults by Weinstein between 1991 and 2013. Four were charged victims and four were witnesses under California Evidence Code section 1108, which allows testimony about a defendant’s “past sexual misconduct, alleged and otherwise, when they are currently on trial for a sex crime.”
Weinstein was charged with seven crimes:
– forced oral copulation, forcible rape and penetration with a foreign object involving Jane Doe 1, an Italian actress who testified that Weinstein raped her at Mr. C’s hotel in Beverly Hills when she was in Los Angeles for the L.A. Italia Film Festival in February 2013.
– sexual battery by restraint involving Jane Doe 2, who testified Weinstein groped her breast while masturbating in front of her at the Montage hotel in Beverly Hills, also in February 2013
– sexual battery by restraint involving Jane Doe 3, a Hollywood masseuse who spoke with with ABC News’ 20/20 using her full name Juls Bindi about Weinstein groping her while masturbating in 2010
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– forced oral copulation and forcible rape in 2005 involving Jane Doe 4, who is Siebel Newsom.
The four witnesses who testified as to uncharged allegations against Weinstein began with a woman who has not spoken publicly outside trial. She is identified as Ashley M, who testified that Weinstein sexually assaulted her in 2003 when she was in Puerto Rico after securing a role as a dancer and body double in Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights.
Also testifying was Kelly Sipherd, who said Weinstein raped her in a Toronto hotel room in 1991 after inviting her to watch a movie during a conversation over wine about the entertainment industry. Sipherd, whose lawyer gave reporters permission to identify her by her full name, said Weinstein assaulted her again in 2008 at the same hotel after she went to his room planning to confront him about the 1991 assault.
One of Weinstein’s original public accusers, Ambra Gutierrez, was another prior bad acts witness, testifying about Weinstein’s groping her breast in New York City in 2015 and an ensuing police sting that included recordings of Weinstein trying to coax Gutierrez into his hotel room. The final prior bad acts witness was Natassia Malthe, who testified that Weinstein raped her in London in 2008 after she told the powerful Hollywood producer, “I don’t do the casting couch thing.”
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(Image: Photo by Etienne Laurent-Pool/Getty Images)
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