LOS ANGELES – Former film producer Harvey Weinstein pleaded guilty Monday to sexually assaulting a woman in the Los Angeles area.
The jury acquitted him of charges involving a second alleged victim and was unable to deliver verdicts on charges involving two other women.
Jurors received the case on Dec. 2 and deliberated for nine days over more than two weeks. After a month-long trial, they faced decisions on two rape charges and five other sexual assault charges against the 70-year-old former movie mogul.
The complaints concerned four women and dated from 2005 to 2013.
Meanwhile, Weinstein still faces more than 20 years in prison in New York after a rape and sexual assault conviction.
Prosecutors urged jurors to believe the accounts of the four women, each of whom gave dramatic and emotional testimony about the allegations.
Weinstein’s attorneys emphasized the paucity of physical evidence in the case and asked jurors to set aside the emotional impact of the testimony to focus on the changes many of the women’s stories had experienced in their conversations with authorities.
Weinstein pleaded not guilty and denied having sex without consent.
The trial comes just after the fifth anniversary of Weinstein’s success stories that made him a lightning rod for the #MeToo movement.
