Harvey Weinstein found guilty of third-degree rape, criminal sex act
Former Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein has been found guilty of two out of five charges against him. The third-degree rape and criminal sex act charges could send him to prison for up to 25 years.
Award-winning journalist Ronan Farrow, who helped launch the #MeToo movement with reporting on Harvey Weinstein, responded to the now-disgraced mogul being found guilty Monday on two sexual-assault related charges by praising the women who came forward.
“Today’s outcome in Harvey Weinstein’s New York trial is the result of the decisions of multiple women to come forward to journalists and to prosecutors at great personal cost and risk. Please keep those women in your thoughts today,” Farrow wrote on Twitter.
HARVEY WEINSTEIN FOUND GUILTY OF THIRD-DEGREE RAPE, CRIMINAL SEX ACT
Weinstein now faces as many as 25 years in prison and still faces additional charges.
Ronan Farrow praised women who came forward against Harvey Weinstein.
Farrow was an NBC News employee when his reporting on Weinstein helped launch the #MeToo movement in 2017 -- but it was not reported by the Peacock Network.
NBC has long claimed that Farrow’s reporting, as presented to it, was not fit to air. So Farrow took his work to The New Yorker, which is known for its rigorous fact-checking, where it was published and won the coveted Pulitzer Prize.
Farrow’s 2019 book, “Catch and Kill,” detailed theories on why NBC News passed on the bombshell story that featured 13 women who accused Weinstein of sexual assault.
NBC has attempted to discredit Farrow and NBC News chairman Andy Lack even sent a letter to staffers, noting issues with his reporting. Lack and his top deputy, NBC News president Noah Oppenheim, have repeatedly downplayed Farrow’s reporting and one NBC executive reportedly said the award-winning reporter behaves like a terrorist – a comment that Farrow responded to on Fox News.
“We witnessed a shutdown of this story, yes, we had multiple named women in every draft of this story, an audio recording of Harvey Weinstein from a police sting operation admitting to not just one sexual assault, but a pattern of them,” Farrow told Fox News in October. “We were ordered to stand down [by NBC].”
Farrow told Fox News' Shannon Bream that he was ordered by NBC executives to stop taking phone calls about the Weinstein story and to cancel an interview with a woman who claimed she was raped by the once-feared producer.
RONAN FARROW RESPONDS TO NBC EXECUTIVE REPORTEDLY CALLING HIM A 'TERRORIST'
Weinstein was found guilty of a criminal sex act for assaulting production assistant Mimi Haleyi at his apartment in 2006 and third-degree rape of a woman in 2013 by a Manhattan jury.
The jury found Weinstein not guilty on the most serious charge, predatory sexual assault, which could have resulted in a life sentence. He was ordered to jail by the judge immediately after the conviction.
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The verdict followed weeks of often harrowing and excruciatingly graphic testimony from a string of accusers who told of rapes, forced oral sex, groping, masturbation, lewd propositions and that's-Hollywood excuses from Weinstein about how the casting couch works.
Weinstein has maintained any sexual encounters were consensual. Sentencing was set for March 11.
NBC News did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the Weinstein verdict.
Fox News’ Sasha Savitsky, Marta Dhanis and Tyler McCarthy contributed to this report.