Weinstein Receives 15-Year Prison Term in Miriam Haley Assault Case

Harvey Weinstein, the former film producer and distributor, received a 15-year prison sentence on Wednesday, September 22, more than a year after a jury found him guilty in a retrial of sexually assaulting Miriam Haley, a former production assistant on Project Runway. Weinstein, who had entered a not guilty plea to first-degree criminal sexual act, was brought into a downtown Manhattan courtroom in a wheelchair, with his hands cuffed to his seat. In a victim impact statement read aloud in court, Haley said Weinstein had abused his position and power and that it caused a devastating effect on her life and security. "It is a life sentence for me," she said. Weinstein also spoke, once more denying the allegations and offering an apology to "anyone I may have hurt by my actions." "I am not a perfect person," he said, "but I am a person who has made mistakes." Later, he stated, "I am not a violent man." Judge Curtis Farber strongly condemned Weinstein before delivering the punishment. "You took what you wanted by force, and you have never accepted responsibility," Farber told the onetime entertainment titan. The judge said the 15-year term would be followed by five years of supervised release and a mandate that Weinstein register as a sex offender. The sentencing occurred after an extended sequence of trials, appeals, and courtroom proceedings that have kept Weinstein imprisoned since his 2018 arrest, one of the pivotal episodes of the #MeToo movement. Weinstein was initially convicted in 2020 of third-degree rape involving Jessica Mann, a former aspiring actor, and first-degree criminal sexual act involving Haley. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison. In 2024, a New York state appeals court overturned the conviction, and a judge ordered a new trial. In June 2025, Weinstein was found guilty once more of a first-degree criminal sexual act involving Haley, who testified that he forcibly performed oral sex on her in his New York City apartment in 2006. The same jury cleared him of a separate criminal sex act charge involving allegations from Kaja Sokola, a former model. The jurors in Weinstein's second New York trial could not reach a verdict on the charge tied to Mann's allegation, and a third trial on that charge also resulted in a hung jury. In late June, prosecutors chose not to pursue the Mann case a fourth time. Weinstein was also convicted in Los Angeles in December 2022 of rape and two counts of sexual assault connected to a 2013 attack on an Italian actor and model. A Los Angeles judge sentenced him to 16 years in prison in February 2023. He is due to be resentenced in Los Angeles after an appeals court vacated the original sentence. The former producer and film distributor forcefully denies all allegations of sexual misconduct, maintaining that his sexual encounters were consensual. Altogether, more than 80 women have accused Weinstein of sexual assault or harassment.