Category: US

CNN
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After weeks of testimony, a South Carolina court finally heard Thursday from Alex Murdaugh, who is facing two counts of murder in the deaths of his wife and son.

The disgraced former attorney pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two weapons charges in the killings of his wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, and son, Paul Murdaugh, on June 7, 2021, at the family’s home in Islandton.

Prosecutors accuse Murdaugh of killing his wife and son to distract from an array of alleged financial crimes, in which he separately faces another 99 charges, and rested their case last week.

The defense has painted Murdaugh as a loving father and husband being wrongfully accused after what it says has been a poorly handled investigation. Here are some of the key moments from his first day of testimony:

Murdaugh admitted for the first time publicly that he lied to investigators about his whereabouts on the night in June 2021, when the killings of his wife and son took place.

The former lawyer acknowledged his voice is heard in a video that appeared to be filmed at the dog kennels where the bodies of his wife and son were found. Prosecutors have used the video to put Murdaugh at the scene of the killings, contradicting his repeated statements to law enforcement that he had not been there that night.

Numerous witnesses had testified his voice is in the background of the video recorded by Paul at 8:44 p.m. June 7, 2021.

“Mr. Murdaugh, is that you on the kennel video at 8:44 p.m. on June 7,” defense attorney Jim Griffin asked, “the night Maggie and Paul were murdered?”

“It is,” Murdaugh said.

CNN reporter notes interesting defense tactic in Alex Murdaugh murder trial

Murdaugh said he lied about being at the kennels earlier that evening because of “paranoid thinking” stemming from his drug addiction.

“I did lie to them,” he said, blaming his addiction to opiate painkillers.

“I wasn’t thinking clearly,” he added. “I don’t think I was capable of reason, and I lied about being down there, and I’m so sorry that I did.”

Still, Murdaugh was emphatic in his denial that he shot and killed his wife and son, insisting in response to Griffin’s questions, “I didn’t shoot my wife or my son, anytime, ever.”

Murdaugh testified that on the night his son and wife were killed, he stepped out of his house after dinner to attend to the dogs in the kennels, after which he went back inside his house and laid down on a couch.

Afterward, he decided to go visit his mother, an Alzheimer’s disease patient, in nearby Almeda, he said.

Murdaugh said his wife “wasn’t planning to go with me that night,” adding, “Maggie didn’t really like to visit my mom.”

Murdaugh told the court that on his way back from his mother’s house, he tried to call his wife twice, but she did not answer. He said he also left her a text. However, he said he did not find her non-response unusual, because she was with Paul and because of sometimes-spotty cell service.

Murdaugh admitted Thursday to stealing from his law firm and his clients, which ultimately led to his resignation from the firm, then known as PMPED and since renamed Parker Law Group.

“I admit, candidly, in all of these cases, Mr. Waters, that I took money that was not mine, and I shouldn’t have done it,” Murdaugh said in response to prosecutor Creighton Waters during the prosecution’s cross-examination.

“I hate the fact that I did it. I’m embarrassed by it. I’m embarrassed for my son,” he said.

“I’m embarrassed for my family, and I don’t dispute that I did it,” he continued.

Murdaugh became visibly upset after his defense attorney asked him if he had a good time with his son Paul on the day prior to his killing.

“You could not be around Paul-Paul (Paul Murdaugh) – you could not be around him and not have a good time,” said Alex Murdaugh, who broke down crying.

“Were you close to Paul?” defense attorney Griffin asked.

Still crying, Murdaugh replied, “You couldn’t be any closer” than he was with Paul and his other surviving son, Buster.

Murdaugh broke down in tears on Thursday as he described seeing the bodies of his wife and son at the family’s dog kennels the night they were killed.

Upon returning to the house in Islandton after visiting his mother, Murdaugh said, Margaret and Paul weren’t there – and he assumed they still were at the kennels, so he went back there.

“What’d you see?” Griffin asked him.

“I saw what y’all have seen pictures of,” he told his defense attorney, crying and taking a pause before saying it was “so bad.”

Murdaugh recalled calling 911 and “trying to tend” to Paul and Maggie, going back and forth between them while on the phone. Paul’s injuries were particularly bad, Murdaugh said, and he recalled trying to check his son’s body for a pulse and trying to turn him over.

“I don’t know why I tried to turn him over,” an emotional Murdaugh said. “I mean, my boy’s laying face down. He’s done the way he’s done. His head was the way his head was. I could see his brain laying on the sidewalk. I didn’t know what to do.”

Murdaugh’s lawyer asked him, “Did you get, on your shirt, high-velocity blood spatter from being within the distance of shooting of Maggie or Paul?

Murdaugh said, “There’s no way I had high-velocity blood spatter on me.”

“I have seen reports that said that,” he added. “I was nowhere near Paul and Maggie when they got shot.”

Murdaugh rebutted earlier testimony about data collected from his cell phone, which showed he searched Google for a restaurant in Edisto Beach , and read a group text message soon after finding the bodies.

Any of those actions were “unintentional,” he said, adding he was trying to call his brothers and a family friend.

“I’m not trying to call those people. I’m not doing a Google search for any Whaley’s restaurant and I’m certainly not reading any text,” he said.

“I can promise you I wasn’t reading any text messages,” Murdaugh said when asked about the group text message.

Murdaugh testified he believes his addiction stemmed from surgery he got for an old college football injury. He said he needed a few surgeries, and he started getting addicted to hydrocodone around 2004 before moving on to oxycodone around 2008.

“My addiction is to opiate painkillers, specifically oxycodone, OxyContin,” he said. “It just escalates. It escalates.”

Murdaugh said he went to a detox facility three times, and he’s been drug-free for “535 days – and I’m very proud of that.”

Murdaugh explained how in September 2021, two months after the killings, he decided to ask a man who he was initially intending to get pills from to instead shoot him.

When asked if that drug transaction actually happened, Murdaugh said he didn’t know because after withdrawal symptoms started, Murdaugh said he changed his plan.

“Not to get the pills from him anymore, and instead I asked him to shoot me,” Murdaugh said when asked to clarify what that meant.

“I meant for him to shoot me so I would be gone,” Murdaugh testified.

Murdaugh was shot in the head on a roadway on September 4, 2021, but survived. That same month, he turned himself in after admitting he asked a former client to kill him during a fake car breakdown so Murdaugh’s oldest son, Buster, could get an insurance payout, police said.

CNN
 — 

Last year was a wreck for Carvana, the online used-car seller known for its tall glass “car vending machines.” In 2022, the company sold fewer cars than it had the year before — the first time that’s happened in nine years — and the company’s losses grew as the used car market soured.

Overall, Carvana’s losses ballooned to $806 million, or $7.61 per class A share of stock, compared to $89 million in the last quarter of 2021. For the full year, the company lost $1.6 billion compared to a loss of $135 million in 2021.

Carvana is the second largest used-car retailer in America after CarMax by a wide margin.

Auto industry supply chain problems that decreased the supply of new cars led to dramatic increases in the price of Carvana’s product, used cars. Many of thoe issues have begun to resolve in the new car market and, consequently, used car prices have recently started to come down. Rapidly rising interest rates just added to the problem, meaning Carvana had a harder time selling cars, the company said in its fourth quarter earnings announcement.

Accustomed to sales growth, Carvana was simply unprepared for the market drop it encountered, the company said.

The number of cars Carvana sold in the fourth quarter last year dropped 23% from a year earlier to about 87,000 while overall revenue declined 24%.

For the full year, Carvana sold 3% fewer vehicles while revenue, at $13.6 billion, increased 6%. Carvana has been aggressively reducing its inventories, the company said, cutting the number of vehicles held in inventory by 27% in the fourth quarter.

“This last year has been a massive change in priorities for the company. The world changed on us very, very quickly,” said chief executive Ernie Garcia III in an earnings call, “and we shifted our priorities very, very quickly. And undoubtedly, that’s been a difficult transition. But I think there’s no doubt that it’s leading to a more efficient company.”

The results of that efficiency, he said, would show up “in the not too distant future” as used car sales rebound.

Company executives said they have worked to reduce their expenses related to selling cars, in particular reducing advertising spending. As the numbers of cars sold has dropped, though, the reductions haven’t yet been visible in per-vehicle profits, they said. As the company works toward profitability, Chief Financial Officer Mark Jenkins said, the company had $3.9 billion in cash, available real estate and other liquid assets available to draw on.

CNN
 — 

The United States is prepared to support Ukraine for the long haul in the war against Russia and is confident Kyiv will prevail, senior Biden administration officials told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria at a unique CNN town hall marking the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion.

“Russia has already lost this war,” Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan said during the town hall Thursday night.

Both Sullivan and Samantha Power, administrator of the US Agency for International Development, took questions at the town hall from Americans and Ukrainians Thursday, on topics ranging from how the US will keep arming Ukraine to an assessment of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions and the role China may play in the conflict.

The US officials praised the resilience of the Ukrainian people as they were questioned by Ukrainians including a 14-year-old girl and a soldier serving on the front lines of the war in the country’s military.

Here are the top takeaways from the town hall on the anniversary of Russia’s invasion:

US officials have signaled that the war is likely to drag on for months still, with no real end in sight.

But Sullivan argued that one year into the conflict, Ukraine has already stopped Russia from accomplishing its main objective of taking over the capital of Kyiv.

“Russia’s aims in this war were to wipe Ukraine off the map, to take the capital and to eliminate Ukraine, to absorb it into Russia,” Sullivan said. “They failed at doing that and they are in no position to be able to do that as we go forward.”

Putin’s aims as the war has dragged on was another topic that was raised at the town hall. Sullivan was asked about the risk that Putin could turn to nuclear weapons, and he said that the US had seen no change in Russia’s nuclear posture.

“Sitting here today, we do not see movements in Russia’s nuclear forces that lead us to believe that something fundamentally has changed from how things have been over the course of the past year,” Sullivan said.

During the town hall, Sullivan touted the latest US security assistance that the Biden administration has authorized to Ukraine – a $2 billion package of weapons that’s expected to be officially announced on Friday as the war hits the 1-year mark.

The $2 billion package includes new funding for contracts including HIMARS rockets, 155-millimeter artillery ammunition, drones, counter-drone equipment, mine-clearing equipment and secure communications equipment.

Sullivan was asked by a Ukrainian soldier named Yegor, currently serving on the front lines, whether the US would be able to increase production of ammunition and other weapons to Ukraine, such as 155-millimeter artillery shells and HIMARS.

“One of the things that we are working hard at – at President Biden’s direction – is to increase the production of all of these types of ammunition,” Sullivan said. “This is not something we can do with the snap of a finger, but it’s something that we are putting immense effort and resources into.”

Sullivan told Zakaria that the US has provided Ukraine with the assistance it needs for each phase of the war since it began one year ago.

But he also acknowledged that the Ukrainians have often asked for more than the US is willing to give – though in many cases the Biden administration has eventually transferred weapons it had initially resisted sending.

Sullivan reiterated the Biden administration’s position Thursday evening that it’s not currently providing F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, saying the fighter jets “are not the key capability” Ukraine needs for a counteroffensive against Russian forces.

Still, Sullivan noted that the F-16s came up during Biden’s trip earlier this week when he spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is pushing for F-16s.

“F-16s are not a question for the short-term fight. F-16s are a question for the long-term defense of Ukraine and that’s a conversation that President Biden and President Zelensky had,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan noted that there is flexibility in the US position on weapons, as the administration weighs the risks of escalation with Ukraine’s security needs throughout the war. Biden agreed to provide Abrams tanks to Ukraine – which the US has argued aren’t as relevant as German Leopard tanks – because Germany wanted the US to provide tanks before it was willing to do so itself, he said.

Zakaria asked Sullivan for his first reaction Thursday evening to a 12-point plan Beijing released calling for the end of hostilities in Ukraine and pitching itself as a mediator between Moscow and Kyiv.

“Well my first reaction to it is they could stop at point one, which is respect the sovereignty of all nations,” Sullivan said. “This war could end tomorrow if Russia stopped attacking Ukraine and withdrew its forces. Ukraine wasn’t attacking Russia, NATO wasn’t attacking Russia, the United States wasn’t attacking Russia. This was a war of choice waged by Putin.”

The same week Beijing released its 12-point plan, US officials have warned that China could be preparing to provide lethal military aid to Russia. Sullivan said Thursday night that such a move has not been ruled out yet.

Still, Sullivan argued that the idea that the two countries are becoming “unbreakable allies” is disproven because China has taken a careful stance toward Russia’s war, noting they abstained instead of voting with Moscow on a recent United Nations resolution.

“They have tried to pitch themselves as somehow not standing fully in Russia’s camp when it comes to the war in Ukraine,” Sullivan said.

Both Sullivan and Power brushed aside criticism from some of Biden’s Republican critics that the billions of dollars the US is spending in Ukraine would be better spent at home.

Many Republicans, including some 2024 hopefuls, have argued aid to Ukraine should be scaled back or cut off as the war stretches on. With Republicans in control of the House, passing additional funding packages for Ukraine is expected to be a tougher lift this year.

Sullivan argued that the US can afford to spend money on problems at home as well as abroad.

“I would say to those senators, yes, let’s do these things at home. But are you saying that American is incapable of also helping to serve as a powerful force of good in the world?” Sullivan said.

“I think there’s a pessimism in this argument that these senators are making. President Biden has an optimistic view, which is that we can do it, and we should do it, and we are doing it.”

Power argued that US support for Ukraine is actually one of the rare issues where there is strong bipartisanship in today’s Washington, when she was asked by a Ukrainian mother about the commonality between the citizens of the two countries.

“The reflection, I think, of how much commonality Americans do feel with Ukrainians is the flow of support that has been sustained over the course of this last year,” Power said. “It is the bipartisanship in a town that isn’t famous for it anymore, but Ukraine has been not only a galvanizing issue, but a uniting issue for our own country.”

Lera, a 14-year-old Ukrainian girl, asked Power whether she could rely on American to feel safe in her country. Power responded that the US was committed to making Ukrainians feel as safe as possible despite the war.

“We have your backs, we stand with you, not just here on the battle front but in trying to help you feel as much safety as you can when one man and his wicked vision has tried to take that away,” Power said.

Power acknowledged the long road ahead for Ukraine to rebuild the country when the war ends. Some estimates have totaled the damage to date at $130 billion, she noted.

“This is going to be a mammoth undertaking,” she said.

Power said that USAID and international financial institutions have worked to rebuild Ukraine’s infrastructure and help get private industry to return to peaceful parts of Ukraine.

But she added that major projects are still ahead, and that the Biden administration and other allies are focused on making sure the money that’s dedicated to reconstruction is well spent.

“The other thing we want to do now is, with an eye to those big-ticket items, most of which will only happen when there’s a negotiated peace,” Power said.

“But we have to make sure resources are going to be well spent,” she added. “When you have those huge investments, which go well beyond what is being provided right now, that’s when of course you want to make sure that you have the safeguards in place so that all outside investors and donors can know and say to their citizens that this is money that’s going to be well spent.”

Power said that to this point, the Biden administration has not seen evidence that US assistance was being misused.

“Again, the key is not resting on anybody’s good will or virtue,” she said. “It’s checks and balances, the rule of law, the integrity of officials.”

CNN
 — 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is keeping his word to radicals who put him in power and rewarding those who can keep him there, paving a smooth start to his tenure that may, however, be storing up trouble down the road.

The California Republican handed hard-right House members with plum committee assignments, dumped several high-profile Democrats from key panels to please the conservative media universe, launched investigations into the “weaponization” of government against Republicans like former President Donald Trump and gave a pass to Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene when she heckled President Joe Biden during the State of the Union address or suggested “national divorce” between red and blue states. He’s refused to demand the resignation of New York Rep. George Santos, a serial fabulist, who might be an embarrassment but whose seat remains critical to the GOP’s tiny majority.

This week, in his most stunning move yet, McCarthy is giving Fox News host Tucker Carlson exclusive access to security footage of the January 6, 2021, US Capitol insurrection. The move may fuel Carlson’s false claims and conspiracies about a heinous attack on American democracy. The Fox primetime star has in the past baselessly claimed people working for the FBI orchestrated the invasion of Congress.

McCarthy is currying favor with a past critic and supremely powerful media host he’d love to get on his side as he tries to rule his conference and court the conservative base. He’s already used the effort in fundraising appeals. And his move may also help whitewash Trump’s culpability for the insurrection, weeks after the ex-president played a role in helping him win the speakership.

After appeasing demands from GOP holdouts and finally securing the speakership on the 15th roll call vote last month, McCarthy’s opponents argue that he’s now cravenly paying back the most extreme members of the most radical GOP conference in modern American history. But perhaps, he’s also purchasing goodwill among his members that could give him more maneuvering room when he needs votes later in the year over critically important issues like raising the government’s borrowing limit, agreeing on a budget and sending more military aid to Ukraine.

Yet there’s little in McCarthy’s past as a Republican leader that suggests he has such political dexterity. And the most riotous members of the House GOP seem highly unlikely to accept McCarthy’s concessions and fall in line. Nor does the uncompromising ideology of some of the political and media influencers he’s courting suggest they’d be content to cede power to him.

And as McCarthy parries accusations that he’s acting from naked political motivations, he’s adopting superficially principled justifications that mock his critics. He told The New York Times he handed over the security tapes because he had “promised” to do so. The speaker gave such an undertaking to Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, a GOP source told CNN’s Melanie Zanona, in his quest to secure the gavel, but the apparent deal did not specify that Carlson should get the footage. McCarthy suggested to the Times he was also acting in the interests of transparency. “I was asked in the press about these tapes, and I said they do belong to the American public. I think sunshine lets everybody make their own judgment.”

Except, he’s not giving them to the American people so anyone can see them, or releasing them to all media, at least yet. The speaker is specifically offering access to a conservative TV host who has made no secret of his agenda. Had he wanted to create that ray of sunshine, McCarthy could have posted them online, tasked congressional committees to examine them or invited other media outlets to also view them.

The credibility of Fox News – Carlson’s television home and the apparent destiny of the tapes – has, meanwhile, taken a hit following revelations from text messages and emails in a court filing this week that some of Fox’s biggest stars and executives privately dismissed Trump’s lies about voter fraud after the 2020 election but allowed them to dominate its airwaves. Just as McCarthy is apparently unwilling to challenge the power of conservative media, Fox appeared unwilling to alienate a conservative audience that wanted to believe Trump won. CNN has reached out to Fox News and Carlson with questions about how the security footage will be handled but had not received a response as of Thursday evening.

McCarthy also tried to cast his stance on Santos, who lied about large portions of his biography and career resume, as a democratic one.

“The voters of his district have elected him,” McCarthy said of the freshman in January, suggesting that to demand the resignation of the New York Republican would be an affront to democracy – even though it appears voters had no idea of the truth about Santos when they sent him to Washington. McCarthy has since hinted that his position could change if the House Ethics Committee “finds something” against Santos, who won a district that Biden carried in 2020 and that could be tough for the GOP to hold.

McCarthy’s stances have led to criticism and enraged Democrats, who say his release of the footage to Carlson could endanger the security of the Capitol. But in America’s bitter political climate, appealing to activist political bases is often the first consideration – especially in the radicalized Republican Party of the Trump era. In the modern GOP, earning the anger of the media is an essential element of appealing to grassroots voters and often seems a major motivation of top party figures.

Previous Republican speakers like John Boehner and Paul Ryan tried to manage their radical right-wing conferences while staying faithful to the institutional responsibilities of their leadership position. It was a balancing act that eventually doomed their tenures. McCarthy appears to be taking the opposite tack, throwing his lot in completely with the extremists who have outsized influence due to the far-smaller-than-expected House majority the GOP managed to win in the 2022 midterms.

But his accommodation of his conference might only work in the short term.

In a sign of growing trouble, a border security bill that McCarthy had hoped to pass early in the new Congress is still in limbo after moderates voiced fierce opposition to a three-page draft drawn up by conservative Rep. Chip Roy from Texas. The dispute underscores the fatal flaw in the GOP majority between right-wingers keen to appeal to the base and moderates who won seats in states like New York and California, where they could face difficult reelection bids in 2024.

CNN also reported this week on bitter splits between factions of the GOP on the question of more aid for Ukraine. McCarthy has tried to finesse this divide by saying he favors support for the Kyiv government but is also against a “blank check” for President Volodymyr Zelensky – in a nod to lawmakers like Gaetz and Greene who oppose multi-billion dollar US aid packages. The speaker’s position is allowing him to avoid alienating either faction so far, but it will come under fierce pressure when massive requests for arms and ammunition for Ukraine arrive on Capitol Hill.

McCarthy also appears to be navigating into a perilous position on a looming showdown with Biden over the need to raise the government’s borrowing authority, or the debt ceiling, later this year. If the authority is not granted by Congress, the US could default on its obligations, shredding its credit rating and throwing the American and global economies into turmoil. But McCarthy is standing with the most radical members of his conference who are demanding huge spending cuts, which Biden has refused to accept, in order to lift the debt ceiling.

The California Republican may end up with a fateful choice between backing the lawmakers who elected him speaker and crashing the economy, since, if he tried to grant Biden such authority by using some Democratic votes, it’s possible he’d be toppled.

CNN
 — 

Harvey Weinstein, the former Hollywood mogul already serving a 23-year prison sentence in New York, was sentenced in Los Angeles Thursday to an additional 16 years in prison for charges of rape and sexual assault.

Prior to the sentence, Weinstein spoke in court and continued to deny any wrongdoing, calling the case a “setup.”

“I maintain that I’m innocent. I never raped or sexually assaulted Jane Doe 1. I never knew this woman, and the fact is she doesn’t know me. This is about money,” he said.

“Please don’t sentence me to life in prison,” he added. “I don’t deserve it.”

His attorneys asked the judge for a sentence concurrent with his ongoing 23-year sentence, saying he was a 70-year-old man in bad health.

Jane Doe 1, the model and actress whose testimony formed the crux of the convictions, also told the judge how the assault had changed her.

“Before that night I was a very happy and confident woman. I valued myself and the relationship I had with God. I was excited about my future,” she said. “Everything changed after the defendant brutally assaulted me.

“I thought I did something wrong because he chose me that night. I thought I did something wrong for him to do that to me. I soon became invisible to myself and to the world. I lost my identity. I was heartbroken, empty and alone.”

Weinstein, 70, was convicted in December on charges of rape, sexual penetration by a foreign object and forcible oral copulation after Jane Doe 1 testified he assaulted her in a Beverly Hills hotel room in February 2013.

Weinstein was also acquitted of one charge, and the jury could not come to a unanimous decision on three other charges, including one related to Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a filmmaker and the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Four counts connected to an unnamed woman who did not testify were also dropped during the trial.

The sentencing was the second for Weinstein on sexual assault charges since reporting by The New York Times and The New Yorker in 2017 revealed his alleged history of sexual abuse, harassment and secret settlements as he used his influence as a Hollywood power broker to take advantage of young women.

At the time, Weinstein was one of the most powerful men in Hollywood and helped produce movies such as “Pulp Fiction,” “Clerks” and “Shakespeare in Love.” The revelations led to a wave of women speaking publicly about the pervasiveness of sexual abuse and harassment in what became known as the #MeToo movement.

The disgraced movie producer is several years into a 23-year prison sentence issued in New York in 2020 after he was found guilty of first-degree criminal sexual act and a third-degree rape. He has appealed the conviction.

Like in the New York trial, prosecutors in the Los Angeles trial said Weinstein was a powerful figure in Hollywood who used his influence to lure women into private meetings, assault them and then silence any accusations.

The trial featured emotional testimony from Weinstein’s accusers – a model, a dancer, a massage therapist and Siebel Newsom – all of whom were asked to recount the details of their allegations against him, provide details of meetings with the producer from years ago, and explain their reactions to the alleged assaults.

Jane Doe 1, whose testimony was tied to the convictions, said that Weinstein came to her hotel room and tried to rape her.

“I wanted to die. It was disgusting. It was humiliating, miserable. I didn’t fight,” she testified in court. “I remember how he was looking in the mirror and he was telling me to look at him. I wish this never happened to me.”

In all, eight women testified they were assaulted during the trial. Four women testified about their alleged assaults, and four other women testified as “prior bad acts” witnesses, meaning their testimony wasn’t directly connected to a charge but could be considered as prosecutors tried to show Weinstein had a pattern in his behavior.

Weinstein had pleaded not guilty, and his defense attorneys maintained the allegations were fabricated or occurred consensually as part of a “transactional relationship” with the movie producer.

“Regret is not the same thing as rape,” defense attorney Alan Jackson said. “And it’s important we make that distinction in this courtroom.”

After convicting him, the jury deadlocked on aggravating factors that could have increased his sentence.

In a statement after Thursday’s sentencing, an attorney representing Siebel Newsom and Ashley Matthau, who both testified at the trial, praised the sentence and their decision to testify.

“Their testimony gave them the power to reclaim their voices, both for themselves and on behalf of the many other women who were abused by Harvey Weinstein,” attorney Elizabeth Fegan said. “It can’t erase the trauma they’ve endured, but it can serve as a catalyst for change and provide hope to other survivors.”

Weinstein maintained his innocence in a statement released by his publicist on Thursday.

“It is incredible to be convicted for a crime I wasn’t even present for,” he said in the statement, adding that he was never with her. “I never raped or assaulted anyone.”