Harvey Weinstein, the once-mighty Hollywood mogul who embodied a toxic culture of sexual impropriety by influential men that sparked the #MeToo crusade, received a 16-year jail term on Thursday for the rape of an actress in Los Angeles in 2013.
In December, a Los Angeles jury found Weinstein guilty of the rape charges leveled against him. The charges were based on the sexual assault of a former model and actress, identified in court documents as Jane Doe 1, at a hotel in Los Angeles in February 2013.
Weinstein, who was the influential co-founder of Miramax Films, a prominent US-based film production and distribution house, will serve the sentence after serving his 23-year jail term for sexual misconduct in New York.
The allegations against Weinstein galvanized the #MeToo movement, which empowered women to speak out against sexual harassment and abuse by powerful men in various fields, including media, politics, and other domains. The movement, which gained steam on social media platforms in 2017, aims to dismantle a culture of complicity that has historically enabled such behaviors to persist without consequence.
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