Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 15 years in prison Wednesday by a Manhattan judge, more than a year after a jury convicted him in a retrial of first-degree criminal sexual act against Miriam Haley — a former Project Runway production assistant who testified he forcibly performed oral sex on her in his New York City apartment in 2006.
Weinstein, appearing in a wheelchair with his hands cuffed to his seat, again denied the allegations while apologising vaguely to “anyone I may have hurt by my actions.” “I am not a perfect person, but I am a person who has made mistakes,” he told the court. “I am not a violent man.”
Judge Curtis Farber was unsparing. “You took what you wanted by force, and you have never accepted responsibility,” the judge said before handing down the sentence. Farber added five years of supervised release to follow the prison term and required Weinstein to register as a sex offender.
In a victim impact statement read aloud in the courtroom, Haley said Weinstein “abused his position and power” and caused “a devastating effect on my life and security.” She added: “It is a life sentence for me.”
A Six-Year Legal Odyssey
Weinstein’s path to Wednesday’s sentencing has been one of the most prolonged and legally complex proceedings in recent American criminal history. He was originally convicted in 2020 of third-degree rape of Jessica Mann and first-degree criminal sexual act against Haley, receiving a 23-year sentence. A New York appeals court overturned that conviction in 2024, ruling that the original trial judge had improperly allowed testimony from women whose cases were not part of the charges.
At his retrial, a jury found him guilty again in June 2025 of the charge involving Haley. The same jury acquitted him on a separate charge involving former model Kaja Sokola. The Mann rape charge — a third-degree rape allegation dating from a separate incident — resulted in a hung jury at both the retrial and a subsequent third trial. In late June, prosecutors declined to pursue the Mann case a fourth time.
Weinstein also faces a separate 16-year sentence handed down in Los Angeles in February 2023 following a December 2022 conviction for rape and two counts of sexual assault involving a 2013 assault of an Italian actor and model. He is set to be resentenced in Los Angeles after an appeals court vacated the original L.A. sentence.
More than 80 women have accused Weinstein of sexual assault or harassment across his decades in Hollywood. He denies all allegations of sexual misconduct and has maintained that all sexual encounters were consensual.
Once one of the most powerful figures in the film industry — Miramax, his first distribution company, released Pulp Fiction and Clerks; his second company produced back-to-back Best Picture winners in The King’s Speech and The Artist — Weinstein’s career collapsed in 2017 when The New York Times and The New Yorker published investigations detailing alleged patterns of harassment and assault spanning decades. Those disclosures became the catalyst for the #MeToo movement.
Weinstein has been held at the Bellevue Hospital prison ward in recent years as his health has declined. He has been diagnosed with bone marrow cancer, kidney disease, and diabetes. He will remain at Bellevue until transfer to a state prison facility.
Stay informed. Subscribe to the JournalTodays Newsletter for the latest legal news, entertainment industry coverage, and current affairs updates delivered straight to your inbox.
