Fifteen Years

Fifteen years. That's the sentence a Manhattan judge handed Harvey Weinstein on Wednesday for sexually assaulting a former production assistant back in 2006.

Judge Curtis Farber tacked on five years of supervised release and ordered Weinstein to register as a sex offender, NBC News reported. Prosecutors had pushed for 20 years, according to the Guardian. Nine years is what Weinstein's lawyers wanted, pointing to his blood cancer, heart disease and kidney problems.

Before sentencing, Miriam Haley addressed the court. The assault left a "devastating effect" on her life and sense of security, one that "may never go away," she said, according to BBC News. Years of harassment and public smearing followed her decision to come forward, she told the court, the Guardian reported.

Wheelchair-bound, his hands cuffed to his seat, Weinstein denied raping or sexually assaulting anyone. "I am not a perfect person," he told the judge, according to ABC News. He said he felt remorse for Haley's pain but held firm on his innocence, ABC7 News reported. Farber wasn't moved. "You had it all," the judge told him. "Your legacy could have been cemented with greatness. But you threw it all away by assaulting Miriam Haley."

Six years. That's how long the legal fight had dragged on before Wednesday's sentence. A jury convicted Weinstein in 2020 and a judge gave him 23 years, but New York's highest court threw out that verdict in 2024, ruling the trial had been unfair because women outside the case were allowed to testify against him, BBC News reported. Last year, a retrial convicted him again on the Haley charge. The same jury acquitted him of assaulting former model Kaja Sokola and deadlocked on a rape charge involving actress Jessica Mann. Prosecutors dropped the Mann charge in June, NBC News reported, after she said she could not endure a fourth trial.

Weinstein has already spent more than six years behind bars while his case moved through the courts, ABC7 News reported. He's also awaiting resentencing in Los Angeles, where an appeals court upheld his 2022 rape conviction but tossed his original 16-year term. Whether that sentence runs before or alongside the New York one is now up to California, ABC News reported. He can appeal Wednesday's sentence.

More than 80 women have accused Weinstein of assault or harassment since 2017, when allegations against him first helped launch the #MeToo movement, NBC News reported. Haley had her own words for what came after. "It's a life sentence for me," she said.