Harvey Weinstein receives 15-year sentence in New York assault case

Harvey Weinstein was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison for sexually assaulting former “Project Runway” production assistant Miriam Haley, closing another chapter in a New York case that helped define the #MeToo era and has stretched through years of trials and appeals.

Weinstein, 74, appeared in a Lower Manhattan courtroom in a wheelchair, wearing a suit, with his hands cuffed to his seat. He had pleaded not guilty to first-degree criminal sexual act. A jury convicted him in 2025 of committing a sexual act against Haley at his Manhattan apartment in 2006.

Judge Curtis Farber ordered the 15-year prison term, followed by five years of supervised release. Weinstein also must register as a sex offender.

“You took what you wanted by force and you have never accepted responsibility,” Farber told Weinstein before imposing the sentence. The judge said Weinstein had once been at the top of the movie industry but would be remembered as “a sexual predator, the literal face of the #MeToo movement.”

Haley delivered a victim impact statement, telling the court Weinstein “abused his position and power” and that the assault had a “devastating effect on my life and security.”

“It is a life sentence for me,” Haley said.

She said the attack damaged her confidence personally and professionally and that she had been diagnosed with PTSD. Haley said she had to repeatedly relive the assault before a grand jury, prosecutors and at trial, and described the experience of testifying as belittling and humiliating. “Often felt like I was the one on trial,” she said.

Prosecutors had asked for a 20-year sentence and five years of post-release supervision. They thanked Haley for her “strength, bravery, tenacity and patience” and said Weinstein “has never shown an ounce of remorse and refuses to accept responsibility for this crime.” Prosecutors also said he had targeted Haley with online harassment and victim blaming.

Weinstein addressed the court, apologizing to “anyone I may have hurt by my actions” while again denying Haley’s allegation. “I am not a perfect person,” he said, “but I am a person who has made mistakes.” He later added, “I am not a violent man.”

Defense attorney Jacob Kaplan pointed to Weinstein’s age and health, saying he takes more than 20 medications a day and has been hospitalized six times since 2025. Kaplan said Weinstein had already spent six and a half years in jail and asked for a nine-year sentence, arguing that a longer term increased the chance Weinstein would die in prison.

Weinstein was originally convicted in New York in 2020 of third-degree rape involving former aspiring actor Jessica Mann and first-degree criminal sexual act involving Haley. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison, but New York’s highest court overturned the conviction in April 2024, leading to a retrial.

In the 2025 retrial, jurors convicted Weinstein on the charge involving Haley and acquitted him of a separate criminal sexual act charge involving former model Kaja Sokola. The jury could not reach a verdict on the charge tied to Mann’s allegation, and a third trial on that charge also ended in a hung jury. Prosecutors later declined to try the Mann case a fourth time.

Weinstein was separately convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of rape and two counts of sexual assault involving a 2013 assault of an Italian actor and model. He was sentenced in 2023 to 16 years in prison, but he is set to be resentenced after an appeals court vacated that sentence.

More than 80 women have accused Weinstein of sexual assault or harassment. He denies all allegations of sexual misconduct and says his sexual encounters were consensual.

Weinstein, once a powerful Hollywood producer behind films including “Pulp Fiction,” “Shakespeare in Love,” “The King’s Speech” and “The Artist,” has been held at the Bellevue Hospital prison ward amid medical issues including bone marrow cancer, kidney disease and diabetes. He will remain there until he is transferred to a state prison.