LOS ANGELES — Harvey Weinstein, the movie producer whose treatment of women propelled the #MeToo movement in 2017, was sentenced on Thursday to 16 years in prison for committing sex crimes in Los Angeles County.
Mr. Weinstein was ordered to serve the Los Angeles sentence after finishing the 23-year term that he is serving from his sexual assault conviction in New York in 2020. The sentencing on Thursday all but ensures that the 70-year-old former Hollywood mogul, who is in declining health, will spend the rest of his life in prison.
In December, jurors in Los Angeles Superior Court found Mr. Weinstein guilty on three counts: forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and sexual penetration by a foreign object. He could have been sentenced up to 24 years under California law. All three counts were related to one woman, referred to as Jane Doe 1 in court, who said she was raped at her hotel in February 2013 while in town to attend the Los Angeles Italia Film Festival.
Mr. Weinstein was not convicted on four other allegations. He was acquitted of one count of sexual battery involving a massage therapist. The jurors could not decide on two counts related to accusations made by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker and the wife of Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, nor could they agree on one count stemming from allegations by Lauren Young, a model and screenwriter.
One of his defense lawyers, Alan Jackson, said after the sentencing on Thursday that he intended to file an appeal in the Los Angeles case.
On Thursday, only the woman identified as Jane Doe 1 was allowed to give a victim statement in court. Crying at times and comforted by her daughter, she said she thought for years that she had done something wrong and became “heartbroken, empty and alone.”
“Inside, I have fallen apart,” she said. “He had broken me into a million pieces.”
The Los Angeles trial was initially seen as symbolic because Mr. Weinstein had already been convicted of sex crimes in New York. But it took on more significance after Mr. Weinstein was allowed to file an appeal in that case, meaning that the California outcome alone could determine his fate.
Mr. Weinstein has been accused by more than 90 women of sexual misconduct. Multiple women went public with their allegations in a 2017 investigation by The New York Times, and their voices gave momentum to the #MeToo movement that exposed sexual harassment and assault by powerful individuals.
On Thursday, Mr. Weinstein appeared in a beige prison jumpsuit and sat in a wheelchair marked “Los Angeles County Jail.” He accused Jane Doe 1 of being motivated by money because she has a pending civil suit against him.
“I never raped or sexually assaulted Jane Doe 1,” Mr. Weinstein said. “I never knew this woman, and, the fact is, she doesn’t know me.”
Prosecutors tried to establish Mr. Weinstein’s pattern of behavior through the testimony of four witnesses whose allegations led to the seven criminal counts, as well as through allegations made by four other women who were allowed to testify that they had been abused by him.
The defense argued that the women had a transactional relationship with Mr. Weinstein and knowingly engaged in sex with him in exchange for professional favors. In some instances, they said the recollections were inaccurate.
During his cross-examination of Ms. Siebel Newsom, Mark Werksman, a lawyer for the defense, accused her of reframing her experience with Mr. Weinstein as negative only after the explosion of the #MeToo movement in 2017. At one point, he told jurors that Ms. Siebel Newsom was “just another bimbo who slept with Harvey Weinstein to get ahead.”
Over two days of testimony, Ms. Siebel Newsom said that she was raped by Mr. Weinstein in 2005 in his Beverly Hills hotel room after she agreed to meet him to discuss her career. She said that she had not come forward earlier because she had tried to ignore the incident as “a way of putting away my sadness, my fear, my trauma, so I could move forward with my life.”
Defense lawyers had requested a new trial, arguing that the jury was improperly instructed and that they were prohibited from presenting certain evidence related to Jane Doe 1. Mr. Jackson told the court that his team had obtained affidavits from jurors who said they would have decided differently if they had heard that evidence.
Judge Lisa B. Lench denied their motion on Thursday.
Debra Katz, a lawyer who represented one of the accusers in the case, said that she hoped Mr. Weinstein’s conviction would encourage other victims of sexual harassment to come forward.
“I do think courage begets courage,” Ms. Katz said after the sentencing.
#MeToo leaders emphasized that the trial’s outcome shouldn’t be considered a barometer of the movement’s strength. Ms. Katz said that Mr. Weinstein’s conviction at least indicated that the courts could be a successful venue for sexual assault victims to seek justice.
“It seems clear that prosecutors are going to keep taking these cases and that people accused and convicted of sexual violence are going to serve long prison terms,” she said. “Every time there’s a setback, people say, ‘Is the movement over?’ Of course not. There’s always going to be setbacks, but there’s no going back.”
Jill Cowan contributed reporting from Los Angeles.
