Weinstein returns to a Manhattan court for sentencing as prosecutors seek 20 years

Harvey Weinstein is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday, Sept. 23, in a Manhattan courtroom. The 74-year-old former Miramax chief was convicted of a 2006 sexual assault on a former TV production assistant, and the most the judge can give him is 25 years behind bars.

A jury convicted Weinstein in June 2025 of first-degree criminal sexual act for the assault. It happened in his SoHo apartment, and the woman had worked as a production assistant on “Project Runway.” The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office wants a 20-year sentence and cites the “significant harms” she suffered.

The woman is expected to give a victim impact statement in court Wednesday morning. Weinstein is also expected to speak.

Why Weinstein is being sentenced again

Weinstein was first convicted in Manhattan in 2020 of sexually assaulting the same woman and raping another woman, and he was sentenced to 23 years. In 2024, New York’s highest court overturned those convictions, ruled that he had not received a fair trial and ordered a new one.

At the 2025 retrial, jurors found him guilty of the criminal sexual act count. They acquitted him of a separate sexual assault charge brought by a new accuser and could not reach a verdict on the rape charge. Prosecutors tried that charge again this year before Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Curtis Farber, and in May the jury deadlocked again. The DA’s office then dropped the charge after the woman said she could not go through a fourth trial.

Weinstein’s California case and time at Rikers

Weinstein has been held at Rikers Island and has health problems. A separate rape case in California is also unfinished. Appeals judges there let the conviction stand but vacated the 16-year prison term, so a court must sentence him a second time. Any California term may come ahead of the time he serves in New York.