Via Amber Tamblyn’s Twitter, Tarantino, who has worked with Weinstein on every single one of his feature films since Reservoir Dogs, has issued a statement:
A serious question: What is the legal penalties for sexual harrassment? And sexual assault?
Kind of in the dark here about US laws on both.
Edit: In Singapore, there is no jail term for harrassment I think. (Verbal ones)
But once physical contact is achieved, like grabbing. You can get jail terms and strokes of rotan. (canning)
For someone as rich as Weinstein? Probably nothing.
Objjection!
They rapin’ everybody out here!
Note to self: avoid men wearing bathrobes in hotel rooms.
Dude, do you not see who is sitting in the White House right now? That answers your question.
An answer without the political context; typically, barring contact, forcibly detaining someone against their will or threats, it’s court-ordered fines in addition to any damages ordered through lawsuits. Jail time can occur, however (I suspect this depends on the local/state laws and the particulars of the harassment). But yes, the moment contact is made, that raises the stakes considerably and can lead to many years in jail (and normally graduates from harassment to other charges, such as sexual assault).
So it’s stricter compared to my country. As in it’s criminal to verbally harrass in US.
I’ll imagine it’ll be hard to enforce though. As in, if an attractive male make a sexual advance, it’ll probably be considered flirting. But when it’s from someone unattractive, it’s harrassment.
It’s often a very difficult case, so you get a lot of people who don’t report it and a lot of settlements when they do. Note - IANAL, but I worked with a rape crisis center for a time and got to hear a lot about the fallout from these situations.
I believe sexual harassment (speech, threats, etc) has civil but no criminal penalties, but someone feel free to correct me.
Sexual assault is a criminal charge, which depending upon the crime, can lead to jail time (hopefully).
Thanks. Clearer now. If the accounts are true, Weinstein should get the full force of the justice system. Using position and power to get sexual favours and even with cases of outright forceful physical contact, is outright dispicable.
A can in a sock is a 3d6 1h blunt tho
Basically if Weinstein used force or threat of force, or the victim (they are all victims) feels intimidated physically, its assault. There are other circumstances too that vary by jurisdiction, some include things like not being able to consent (I.e. passed out drunk or high).
If he says something unwanted sexually, especially if it’s coersive at all, its probably harassment. Also usually thus include if he is rebuffed and continues.
The key thing in my mind is the hotel encounters. Once the victim is alone with the perp in a domain he completely controls, especially if he is being sexual aggressive without reciprocation, he gets into criminal territory in my mind. He’s a lot bigger than his victims and his history would lead a jury down a conviction path.
We also though, have this thing in the US called a statue of limitations. Murder is the only one I know of with an unlimited time frame. All the others generally degrade over the severity of the crime. Petty vandalism, for instance, might be like a year or something. I think things like theft might have a limitation of 7 years or so, sexual assault is probably somewhere in there.
Of course IANAL and each jurisdiction (state, local laws) vary.
If you’ve traveled to the furthest reaches of the Internet in a quest to find the worst possible take on the Harvey Weinstein story, trust me, you can stop looking, because I found it: a guest post at Instapundit by the sci-fi and military novelist John Ringo.
Shorter Ringo: When Hollywood women attack conservative men, it’s because they really hate Harvey Weinstein.
[Edit: Obligatory: OH JOHN RINGO NO & related Ye Olde Qt3 Thread]
From that article…
…talking about his experience with Hollywood’s sexual harassment machine and how he managed to get out of the situation thanks to his martial arts background and being strong-willed enough not to let another man put cream on his strudel.
Fuck you, Billy D.
In the workplace, yes. If your employer knows it happened and did nothing you can sue them.
Legally as far as the person… not really? If you don’t physically touch someone, it’s more or less protected speech.
It’s a fairly blurry line, but mostly in comes down to positions of power. If some random dude on the street says something, there is nothing you can do. If you boss does it, that’s a whole different story because he is in a position of power over you. That’s still more of a civil than criminal case as far as I understand it, though.
Just to clarify this, harassment of a sexual nature that becomes stalking (a long pattern of repeated harassment) IS criminal, but again it’s a hellish case to go through and relies almost exclusively on state laws.
Yeah, I was talking about a one-shot incident. Like the stereotypical woman walking past a construction site scenario.
Stalking is it’s own thing and, as you say, very dependent on state and local laws.
Americans love our horndog alpha make leaders, political or otherwise.
Not sure if this is immediately relevant, but this is a pretty common example, an old pic (<2010) with Jennifer Aniston and maybe Afflec? Public event, photo op…
