{"id":729420,"date":"2026-06-27T15:23:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T15:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/729420\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T15:23:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T15:23:11","slug":"appeals-court-upholds-harvey-weinsteins-l-a-conviction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/729420\/","title":{"rendered":"Appeals Court Upholds Harvey Weinstein’s L.A. Conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAn appeals court on Friday rejected Harvey Weinstein<\/a>\u2018s bid to overturn his rape conviction in Los Angeles, but ordered a lower court judge to resentence him.<\/p>\n

\n\tWeinstein, 74, was convicted in 2022 of sexually assaulting a model at the L.A.-Italia Film Festival, and sentenced to 16 years in prison. On appeal<\/a>, his lawyers argued that the trial judge improperly withheld sexually suggestive Facebook messages between the accuser and another man that would have undermined her credibility and helped to establish an alibi.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn its ruling on Friday, the three-judge panel ruled that Weinstein\u2019s trial attorneys had failed to adhere to the state\u2019s rape shield law, which protects sex assault accusers from defense questions about past sexual conduct. The appeals panel similarly also found that the trial court\u2019s evidentiary rulings were not grounds to overturn the verdict.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe court\u2019s application of California statutory rules of evidence did not infringe on Weinstein\u2019s constitutional rights to challenge the prosecution\u2019s case, present a defense, and confront the witnesses against him,\u201d wrote Justice\u00a0Michelle Kim, on behalf of a unanimous panel.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe appellate panel rejected a series of other arguments as well, including a claim that the judge erred by allowing four accusers to testify about uncharged allegations of sexual misconduct. The court found that the testimony \u201cwas relevant to show his propensity to commit the sexual offenses charged in this case.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe appeals court did order that Weinstein be resentenced. Weinstein was sentenced to eight years for forcible oral copulation \u2014 the highest available sentence on that count \u2014 plus six years for forcible sexual penetration and two years for forcible rape. Judge Lisa Lench found that the eight-year sentence was justified due to Weinstein\u2019s prior sexual assault conviction in New York.<\/p>\n

\n\tSince then, however, Weinstein\u2019s New York verdict was overturned, removing that as a justification for the higher term. The appeals court noted that the state attorney general\u2019s office agreed that Weinstein was entitled to resentencing on those grounds, and ordered the lower court to do so.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf Lench imposes the middle term for that offense \u2014 six years \u2014 it would reduce his total sentence by two years.<\/p>\n

\n\tWeinstein\u2019s spokesman, Juda Engelmayer, said that he was \u201cdisappointed\u201d in the ruling and would pursue an appeal to the state\u2019s highest court.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is not the end of the appellate process,\u201d he said. \u201cWe intend to seek review in the California Supreme Court because we continue to believe significant legal errors affected the proceedings and warrant further review.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWeinstein also faces sentencing in September in his New York case, after being reconvicted last year of sexually assaulting Miriam Haley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An appeals court on Friday rejected Harvey Weinstein\u2018s bid to overturn his rape conviction in Los Angeles, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[88,35083],"class_list":["post-729420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-harvey-weinstein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}