Attribution to Georges Biard

Harvey Weinstein is 70 years old. He was sentenced to 23 years in New York State, after being found guilty of sexual assault, forced oral copulation and rape. He faced a further trial in Los Angeles. He was found guilty of rape and sentenced to 16 years. The lawyer, representing Weinstein, requested a sentence of three years, to be served, concurrently, with the sentence already handed to Weinstein. The judge denied the request and stipulated that the 16 year sentence be added on to the 23 years. This ensures that Weinstein will die in prison.

The trial related to alleged assaults by Weinstein on four women. The jury was deadlocked on the alleged charges on three of those women, but did find Weinstein guilty on the assault on the fourth woman. The fourth woman, identified during the trial as Jane Doe 1, cried during her testimony at the sentencing hearing. She stated that,

“There is no prison sentence long enough to erase the damage. … He deserves to experience the same shame, humiliation and fear as I did,”

Weinstein, belligerent to the end, claimed not to know the woman and said that 2013 rape that occurred in a hotel room did not happen.

Following the trial, the woman identified herself. She is a 43 year old former model and actress, Evgenia Chernyshova. She has described in vivid detail what Weinstein did to her that night, and, how her life has been affected since then. She decided to come out, as follows,

‘I’m tired of hiding. I want my life back. I’m Evgeniya, I’ve been raped. This is my story. 

Her marriage fell apart and she hated herself, for years.

“I was hating myself. I was thinking all the time, “There were a lot of beautiful women and stars there, and he chose you. So it’s you who did something. I was depressed, I was mentally not stable. I was out of my mind.” 

Evgenia told no one until 2017 when her then 16 year old daughter told her that her that she had been sexually assaulted by a boy at school. Evgenia begged her daughter to go to the police. Her daughter recounted the conversation they had.

“I told her that she would never really be able to understand me. And she told me that she does understand, because she has been raped,” .

They made a pact, that day, they would both report their abusers

I will close this chirp, quoting from Evgenia about her regret on not reporting the rape earlier.

“I did it because I was ashamed and humiliated. I thought it was a good decision to protect my kids. But it was a horrible decision for myself because I’ve been cut off from everyone. It isn’t right to go through this hell alone,”