Harvey Weinstein gets 15 years in New York after retrial conviction

Pinned summary · as of 06:22

A Manhattan judge, Curtis Farber, has jailed Harvey Weinstein for 15 years over a sexual act committed against a former production assistant. The 74-year-old film producer received the term on Wednesday, 23 September, following a second trial in which a jury again found him guilty on that count.

What we know

• A 15-year jail term was handed to the 74-year-old Weinstein by Judge Curtis Farber in New York on Wednesday, 23 September 2026.
• The term stems from a second trial where jurors found Weinstein guilty on a count of criminal sexual conduct involving a onetime production assistant, over an incident dated 2006.
• The state's top court in New York threw out Weinstein's original 2020 conviction in 2024, saying he had not received a fair trial, and a new trial followed.
• At the retrial, jurors cleared Weinstein on a charge involving a model and failed to agree on the allegation raised by an actress.
• Weinstein has denied the accusations against him, though in court he said sorry to anyone hurt by his actions. The woman at the centre of the case also spoke to the court about the lasting harm the assault caused her.
• Separately, a Los Angeles court convicted Weinstein of sex crimes in 2022, and a California appeals court has ordered that he be resentenced there.
• Accusations by numerous women against Weinstein, which surfaced publicly in 2017, are closely associated with the start of the #MeToo movement.

What's disputed / unconfirmed

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  The Press Radio reported that prosecutors wanted a 20-year term and that defence lawyers pleaded for less because of Weinstein's age and health; no other report has confirmed either position.
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  The Press Radio said a representative of Weinstein plans to appeal both the conviction and the sentence. This plan has not been confirmed by other reports.
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  According to The Press Radio, the complainant later described the 15-year term as fair. That reaction appears in no other report.
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  Reports differ on what the judge said. The Press Radio reported his remark that Weinstein's legacy in film had been damaged by his own actions, while The Ghana Report quoted him telling Weinstein: "You took what you wanted by force and you have never accepted responsibility".
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  The Press Radio reported an earlier 23-year sentence in 2020 and said prosecutors later dropped a rape charge after the complainant signalled she did not want to testify again; The Ghana Report did not carry these details.
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  The Ghana Report said Weinstein came to court in a wheelchair and is held in a prison ward at Bellevue Hospital because of several ailments; these details have not been confirmed elsewhere.
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  The Ghana Report said Weinstein is still waiting to be sentenced in California, while The Press Radio described a 16-year term there that is now subject to resentencing, so the position of that case is unclear.

Why it matters for Ghana

The case is one of the best-known tests of how courts treat sexual-offence complaints against powerful people, and its long path through appeals shows how convictions can be reopened. For Ghanaian readers who follow international news and the debate on abuse and accountability, the ruling shows how a complainant's account can be heard again years after an original verdict was set aside.