what did weinstein ever do that warrants prison?
from what i know about the case (which is not much, i admit) he would offer to use his influence and power to give a big career bost to an actress in exchange for her sucking him off. didn't force himself on anyone, didn't rape anyone, didn't drug anyone, just offer sex for favors. i don't even know if that is technically illegal (maybe it qualifies as soliciting a prostitute?) but even if it is, i'm pretty sure it's a LOT less severe of an offense than actual rape or sexual assault.
Weinstein's case was way way different; in that it was several shades of perversion Hollywood style and with the added bonus of political criminal behavior/intrigue added into it.
For starters, the casting couch is a huge thing and several women did come forward to stating point blank that their careers were FUBARed when they wouldn't fuck Harvey on command. Also, Harvey was THAT powerful; he had the Hollywood A-List on speed dial, his studio had the most powerful PR/advertising division in the industry, and routinely bought up properties that were Oscar gold and gave roles in said productions to his most loyal sychophants and the actresses who were willing to fuck him or (in the case of Jessica Lawrence) provide him a steady stream of nudie pics for the roles or, if they were too old (like Judi Dench and Meryl Streep) provide him a steady stream of young newbie actresses for him to pump and dump.
Second, Weinstein's behavior was a well known secret but never got made front page news because Weinstein used his pull and powerful friends to kill any attempt to report it. In the early 00s, Weinstein actually had several big name actors (Matt Damon, Russell Crowe, among others) personally contact a reporter who had Weinstein dead to rights and got said reporter to drop the story. Other reporters, Weinstein flat out bribed himself: getting them developmental deals "to write a movie for him" or outright buy the movie rights to said writer's garbage movie script or book they were writing in their spare time but couldn't get anyone to publish it.
And that's not counting Weinstein's political connections. He was into some serious criminal shit with the DNC/Clintons/Obama breaking all sorts of campaign contribution laws. Politicians can only accept X amount of money donation-wise from a single person/organization; which is a bad thing when you get regular donations from the media elite; one big check could max out how much someone can give over the course of a single campaign. Weinstein helped the left get around this via being a "bag man"
Whenever the DNC, the Clintons, or Obama needed money for their campaigns? Weinstein would take donations from Hollywood's elite and hand it over to the DNC/Clintons/Obama without a paper trail (all campaign contributions must be recorded on record). This let the elites funnel money to the Democrats while skirting campaign donation laws.
Furthermore, whenever the DNC had SJW talking points (gay rights, trans right, feminist crap, global warming, gun control) they wanted spread via Hollywood? Weinstein was there to make it happen. The DNC would give him the talking points and he would pass it along to the writers, directors, actors, etc to shill in interviews and in the plots of their movies and TV shows.
As for why Weinstein ultimately got brough down? A couple of reasons:
1. His studio hit a multi-year rough patch financially and Weinstein's brother and the board of directors wanted Weinstein out because he didn't want to do anything to try and course correct. Since Weinstein only cared about winning Oscars and holding court with his elite friends and circle jerk with them, especially after Trump won.
2. Weinstein had helped Mia Farrow's kid Ronan Farrow get a gig on MSNBC and when Farrow's SJW-centric show flopped? Ronan was livid that MSNBC had canceled him and that Weinstein refused to intercede to keep his show on the air. So he decided to get revenge on Weinstein by creating the ultimate dossier of his being a sexual predator and get someone to publish it.
3. Steve Bannon. Bannon knew that Weinstein was breaking campaign donation laws AND was the point man for the DNC spreading anti-Trump hate mongering/Russiagate lies via Hollywood's elite. He wanted to bring down Weinstein, since that would have delievered a major blow to the Democrats financially by killing their golden goose and damage the Hollywood/DNC pipeline for spewing anti-Trump talking points. And he knew that Ronan was shopping around the mother of all Weinstein exposes and knew that the media had been spiking similar exposes for years.
Once the media knew that Bannon knew what Ronan was doing, they couldn't dismiss Ronan like they did all of the other reporters. Because Bannon would swoop down and deliver the story to Fox News or worse, go public with the fact that the mainstream media had purposely spiked yet another expose on Hollywood's biggest sexual predator/that Hollywood/media had no right harping on Trump being a predator when both Hollywood and the media was protecting an even WORSE predator.
Weinstein's studio and his brother had their excuse to oust him, Hollywood was scrambling to distance themselves from Harvey because of the number of older female stars (Dench, Streep) who were his pimp and manipulated younger actresses to be pumped and dumped and the male actors who actively ran interference for him, along with everyone fearful that Harvey would leak how he was funnelling money to the DNC illegally and how the DNC was using Hollywood as a handpuppet to shill their various agendas.
The only reason Harvey wasn't suicided was due to the fact that he fell on his sword to cover up his position as bagman. Even now, he's been rewarded for his silence as attempts to criminally prosecute him have largely stalled out. He'll never work in Hollywood again, but given that he was already checked out professionally, he probably doesn't care. He's got enough money that he can just retire to Europe if he wanted to.
