(Los Angeles) Former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein announced on Tuesday that he wanted to appeal his conviction for rape and sexual assault in Los Angeles, which risks earning him nearly 18 additional years in prison.
Mr. Weinstein, who is already serving a 23-year prison sentence after his conviction in New York in 2020 for similar facts, “is determined to continue his legal proceedings to finally prove his innocence”, according to a statement sent to AFP by his spokesperson.
“Harvey is obviously disappointed with the verdict,” the statement added, noting that the testimony on which his conviction is based “provides a strong basis for an appeal.”
The 70-year-old former ‘king’ of cinema, who produced award-winning hits like pulp Fiction Where The Artistwas found guilty on Monday of raping and sexually assaulting a woman at a Beverly Hills hotel in 2013, after a trial that dissected how he abused his power in Hollywood to assault many with impunity. of actresses.
After two months of trial, the jurors thus entirely agreed with one of the four anonymous women who accused him. However, they did not issue a verdict on the charges of two other women, and declared him not guilty of the allegations made by the latter.
The press investigations that revealed the first accusations in 2017 led to the #metoo movement, a global phenomenon for the liberation of women’s voices on gender-based and sexual violence.
On Monday, the woman recognized as a victim by the jurors welcomed the verdict and hoped that her attacker “never sees in his life outside a prison cell. »
“Harvey Weinstein destroyed a part of me forever,” she insisted in a statement.
On Tuesday, the jurors failed to be unanimous on possible aggravating circumstances of the attack she suffered. What limit the maximum sentence incurred by the ex-producer to 18 years behind bars, instead of 24.
The verdict of this new trial in Los Angeles was particularly important for the ex-producer. Because after an initial refusal of justice, the New York Supreme Court finally authorized him in August to appeal his 2020 conviction, an initial decision which had been a major victory for the #metoo movement.
At the hearing, the prosecution portrayed Mr. Weinstein as an all-powerful ogre, a “predator” whose stranglehold on Hollywood — the films he produced have received more than 330 Oscar nominations and 81 statuettes — has long prevented his victims from speaking, for fear of repercussions on their careers.
His defense systematically questioned the word of the four accusers during the trial and insisted on the lack of material evidence and forensic elements.
In total, nearly 90 women, including Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow and Rosanna Arquette, have accused Harvey Weinstein of harassment, sexual assault or rape. But the statute of limitations has been exceeded in many of these cases, some dating back to 1977.
The ex-producer is also charged in the United Kingdom for sexual assaults which date back to 1996.