A California appellate court has upheld Harvey Weinstein's Los Angeles rape conviction, turning back the former film producer's effort to have it overturned — but it also ordered that he be resentenced, CBS News Los Angeles reported.
The ruling
A three-judge panel of California's 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled unanimously that it would not "disturb the jury's guilty verdicts." Weinstein's lawyers had argued, among other things, that the trial judge wrongly excluded certain messages involving the accuser and improperly allowed other women to testify about uncharged allegations. The panel rejected those challenges, finding the disputed evidence had been properly handled and that the additional testimony was admissible to show a pattern of conduct, Variety reported.
The Los Angeles case
Weinstein was convicted in December 2022 of one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault against an Italian model and actress, and acquitted of one other count, with jurors deadlocking on two more. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
The reason for the resentencing lies in how that term was built. Part of the sentence had been enhanced on the basis of Weinstein's 2020 New York felony conviction — but that conviction was overturned by New York's Court of Appeals in April 2024. With the underlying basis gone, the California panel said the trial court must reconsider the term; depending on the outcome, his California sentence could be modestly reduced.
The New York cases
Weinstein's New York proceedings have followed a separate, tangled path. After the 2020 conviction was overturned, he was retried in 2025 and found guilty of one count of sexual assault involving a former production assistant, acquitted on another, and the jury deadlocked on a third. Prosecutors later dropped the remaining rape charge after juries twice failed to reach a verdict. He is due to be sentenced in New York later in 2026.
What's next
Weinstein, now in his 70s and in poor health, remains incarcerated. His representatives said they were disappointed and intend to ask the California Supreme Court to review the case. "This is not the end of the appellate process," a spokesman said. Whatever happens at resentencing, the California ruling keeps his Los Angeles conviction on the books — leaving him with standing sexual-assault convictions on both coasts.
Weinstein's prosecutions, which followed the 2017 reporting that helped ignite the global #MeToo movement, remain among the most closely watched criminal cases in recent American history.
