Harvey Weinstein is scheduled to be sentenced today in Los Angeles, despite Gloria Allred's writ
Victim Jane Doe 1 is expected to speak at the hearing, but Judge Lisa Lench will first consider a motion for new trial brought by Weinstein's lawyers.
Update: Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years. Read my Los Angeles Magazine article here.
Disgraced Hollywood titan and convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein is scheduled to be sentenced today in Los Angeles, despite a last-minute appellate writ from attorney Gloria Allred.
But first, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench will consider Weinstein’s motion for new trial. The motion focuses in part on Lench’s decision to prohibit Weinstein’s lawyers from questioning victim Jane Doe 1 about her sexual history involving another witness, film festival organizer Pascal Vicedomini.
Weinstein’s lawyers Mark Werksman and Alan Jackson are also pointing to Jane Doe 1’s testimony that she would never sue Weinstein, when in fact she filed a lawsuit against him after trial.
Prosecutors Paul Thompson and Marlene Martinez opposed the new trial request, writing in a Feb. 14 filing, “The defense has had a years-long obsession with Jane Doe 1's sex life.”
They’re asking Lench to sentence Weinstein to 24 years in prison, on top of the 23 years he’s already serving for sex crime convictions out of New York.
Meanwhile, Allred has asked an appellate court to delay Weinstein’s sentencing or immediately allow her clients to speak at the hearing. My Los Angeles Magazine article details the request, which, objectively speaking, has very little chance of succeeding. There appears to be no precedent for accusers not connected to convictions to speak at a defendant’s sentencing.
The accuser who will be speaking is Jane Doe 1, a former model and actress who lives in Italy and testified that Weinstein raped her in her room at Mr. C Beverly Hills hotel in February 2013 when she was in Los Angeles for the L.A. Italia Film Festival.
Weinstein was convicted of three crimes involving Jane Doe 1: forced oral copulation, forcible rape and penetration with a foreign object.
Her lawyer, Dave Ring of the respected victims’ rights firm Taylor & Ring LLP, told me Wednesday that she’s definitely going to speak, and he hopes the hearing isn’t delayed because of Allred’s appellate petition.
“Jane Doe 1 has waited over five years for the opportunity to speak at the sentencing hearing of her rapist, Harvey Weinstein. On her behalf, I hope the criminal sentencing is not delayed. Weinstein needs to be sentenced and shipped off to prison for the rest of his life without further delay,” Ring said in an email. (I profiled Ring’s firm for the Los Angeles Daily Journal in 2019. Check out the article here.)
Allred’s clients include Jane Doe 2 as well as Jane Doe 5 and Natassia Malthe, a Norwegian model who testified as a so-called prior bad acts witness under California Code of Evidence 1108, which allows testimony about a defendant’s “past sexual misconduct, alleged and otherwise, when they are currently on trial for a sex crime.”
Jane Doe 5 never testified, and Judge Lench ended up dismissing the four charges involving her at the request of prosecutors.
Jurors split 10-2 in favor of convicting Weinstein of sexual battery for Jane Doe 2, who has been identified publicly by her true name Lauren Young and was a witness in Weinstein’s New York trial in 2020. Jurors also deadlocked 8-4 in favor of convicting Weinstein of raping Jane Doe 4, who is California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom.
Jurors acquitted Weinstein of felony sexual battery involving Jane Doe 3, who is Hollywood masseuse Juls Bindi but deadlocked on a misdemeanor sexual battery charge.
I was in the courtroom when Jane Doe 1 took the stand as the first trial witness on Oct. 24. I wrote three articles:
Oct. 25: Harvey Weinstein Accuser ‘Jane Doe 1’ Describes Alleged 2013 Hotel Room Assault: ‘I Wanted to Die’
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