Updated

Updated · Deadline · Jun 27

California Court Upholds Weinstein's 2022 Sex Crimes Conviction, Vacates 16-Year Sentence

Updated

Updated · Deadline · Jun 27

California Court Upholds Weinstein's 2022 Sex Crimes Conviction, Vacates 16-Year Sentence

Q: Why was Weinstein's rape conviction upheld in California, yet his 16-year sentence thrown out by the court?

Weinstein’s California conviction was upheld because the appeals court found no reversible error in the trial itself, but his 16-year sentence was vacated because the judge relied on an aggravating factor that no longer legally stands. The three-judge panel rejected Weinstein’s main challenge to the verdict. His lawyers argued that the trial judge wrongly limited questioning and excluded Facebook messages they said could undermine accuser Evgeniya Chernyshova’s credibility and support an alibi. The appellate court found the defense still had enough opportunity to present that theory through other evidence. It also agreed that some of the excluded material ran into California’s rape shield protections, which restrict use of an accuser’s sexual history. The court further left intact the use of testimony from other accusers about uncharged assaults, which California law permits in sex-crimes cases to show propensity. The sentence was a different matter. When Weinstein was sentenced in Los Angeles, the trial judge treated his then-existing New York sexual assault conviction as an aggravating factor supporting a harsher term. That New York conviction was later overturned. Once that prior conviction fell away, part of the legal basis for the California sentence fell with it. So the appeals court kept the guilty verdict but ordered a new sentencing hearing because the punishment had been calculated using a factor that is no longer valid.

3 articles · Updated · Deadline · Jun 27

A California appeals court left Harvey Weinstein’s 2022 Los Angeles sex-crimes conviction intact but ordered him resentenced, ruling the original 16-year term relied on a now-invalid aggravating factor.
The 112-page unanimous decision said Judge Lisa B. Lench improperly imposed an upper-term sentence partly based on Weinstein’s 2020 New York conviction, which was overturned in April 2024.
Weinstein, 74, will likely see his LA sentence cut to about 12 to 14 years; the court also rejected his argument that testimony from other accusers was wrongly admitted to show propensity.
The ruling came a day after Manhattan prosecutors dropped plans for a fourth New York rape trial, while Weinstein’s team said it will ask the California Supreme Court to review the case.