Weinstein in hospital with chest pains as he waits to hear his fate
Rapist could lose honorary CBE for services to British film after conviction in New York court
HARVEY WEINSTEIN was yesterday under armed guard in a prison hospital after suffering chest pains while on his way to Rikers Island prison following his conviction for sexual offences.
Weinstein, 67, was being treated in Bellevue Hospital, Manhattan, for raised blood pressure. Juda Engelmayer, his spokesman, said it was unclear when he would be released.
Although Weinstein suffers ailments including diabetes and a bad back, a source suggested to the New York Post that he was “faking it a little bit”. Donna Rotunno, his lawyer, told Fox News he was also being checked for heart palpitations, adding: “He’s OK.”
Weinstein, found guilty of rape and sexual assault by a court on Monday, is expected to be taken to prison to await sentencing on Mar 11.
He faces a total of up to 29 years behind bars if the judge decides to impose the heaviest sentence permissible.
His lawyers had asked for Weinstein to be sent to the jail’s North Infirmary Command, two dank buildings that house sick inmates and those with sufficient notoriety to require protection.
Violence and neglect at Rikers Island have become so entrenched that Bill de Blasio, New York’s mayor, vowed in 2017 to close it within a decade. In 2015, federal prosecutors concluded after an investigation that guards routinely abused inmates at the jail, which sits on an island in the East River.
Weinstein has been seeking advice to help him adjust to life behind bars, Mr Engelmayer confirmed, following in the footsteps of other high-profile inmates including Martha Stewart, Bernie Madoff, and Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s lawyer.
Such advisers – Mr Engelmayer declined to say who – can help with the process, from charging to sentencing to release, assisting with petitioning for perks and dealing with problems.
Last night, Boris Johnson was said to be considering revoking Weinstein’s honorary CBE, awarded in 2004 for outstanding contribution to the British film industry. His spokesman said: “It’s a matter for the independent honours forfeiture committee… We are crystal clear any unwanted sexual behaviour is completely unacceptable and we condemn sexual violence in all its forms.”
Honours can be forfeited when a person is considered to have brought the system into disrepute. Criteria include being jailed for three months or more or being struck off by a professional body.
In 2017, Weinstein was thrown out of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which awards the Oscars. Dawn Butler, the shadow equalities secretary, said: “Weinstein should have been stripped of his honours a long time ago but now he’s been found guilty by the courts, there’s no excuse. It’s shameful and more importantly, it’s insulting to his victims.”
Monica Lewinsky yesterday hailed the verdict against Weinstein, tweeting: “[I] found myself emotional + so grateful for this… not just for the women who were grossly abused by Harvey F Weinstein but for all women who’ve been marginalised and abandoned by the justice system, sectors of society and some media outlets/journos. This is a win for Metoo.” Mr Trump also weighed in: “He said he’d work hard to defeat me in the election. How did that work out? I don’t know much about the case but I was not a fan. The people who liked him were the Democrats – Michelle Obama loved him, Hillary Clinton loved him. From the standpoint of women, I think it was a great thing – a great victory, and I think it sends a strong message.”
Steve Dagworthy had never received so much as a school detention when, in 2009, he was escorted into HMP Chelmsford to begin a six-year sentence for fraud. Until then, the 44-year-old had lived a quiet, middle-class existence with his wife and two children in Essex, where he worked as a financial broker.
Prison was an environment he knew only from television and he was staggered by just how little his lawyers had prepared him for life behind bars.
He was a stranger to what his fellow inmates called “cell etiquette”, for example, such as the rule that whoever arrives first in a cell gets the bottom bunk. And he was appalled to witness bloody knife fights among his fellow inmates, some of whom planted “shivs” in the handles of toothbrushes.
Upon his release in 2012, Dagworthy founded Prison Consultants, the UK’S first jail time advice service, which teaches wealthy clients how to adapt to life inside.
The bizarre (and expanding) world of these “prison preppers” was highlighted this week by Harvey Weinstein, who hired his own prison consultant shortly before his conviction on Monday for thirddegree rape, for which he faces up to 25 years in prison. For thousands of dollars, experts say, the unnamed consultant will most likely explain to Weinstein how to survive life in the slammer as an ultra-recognisable sex offender, going into everything from how to deal with his fellow inmates to how to fill his long, empty days.
It is a lesson that the Hollywood mogul may have taken from Bernie Madoff, the disgraced financier who reportedly hired his own consultant to help him adjust to his 150-year federal prison sentence.
And it is a service for which Weinstein will be grateful: when he leaves the hospital prison ward to which he was rushed after suffering heart palpitations following his conviction, the 67-year-old will be held at Rikers Island, a notorious New York jail which housed Sid Vicious and Mark Chapman, the man who killed John Lennon. Rikers has been plagued by overcrowding, gang brutality and allegations of human rights violations, and conditions are so brutal that in 2017 mayor Bill de Blasio vowed to shut it down within a decade.
Dagworthy tells his British clients that their first six months inside will be dominated by fear and bewilderment. “The prison van might as well have been a spaceship, because it put me into a whole new world. I liken it to arriving in North Korea. The sights, smells, sounds, the language the other prisoners speak was all alien to me. Most middle-class prisoners will come across as slightly different to the rest. They’re not of the villainous nature, they probably speak slightly differently, they probably don’t understand the language.” Then, about six months in, clients will reach their “realisation point – when the adrenaline stops pumping. You’ve realised this is your home now and then the enormity hits you, and the stress you put on your family. That’s a massive low point. It took me about two weeks to get through. It happens with everybody. I get calls from concerned relatives.”
He advises his clients to find something to fill their day, but to keep away from jobs that might put them in an awkward position. If you work in the kitchen, for example, you might be asked to provide extra food to certain inmates. “As soon as you get involved in that, then you’re known, and you succumb to the professional prisoners who are there to try to get something from you or bully you.”
But what of American prisons, such as the one in which Weinstein will eventually find himself? David Parker*, who spent 12 years incarcerated in the US federal system and now also works as a prison consultant, says Weinstein’s experience will depend massively on where he is held after sentencing. High-security institutions such as Rikers are “violent and dangerous”, but Weinstein may eventually be moved to a mediumsecurity facility, which, in Parker’s experience “wasn’t that bad”.
In order to survive – and even thrive – he says Weinstein will need to show respect to his fellow inmates.
The old adage that you should “find the biggest guy you can and punch him” – as demonstrated by Edward Norton’s character in American History
X (1998), who gets into a brawl to prepare for his spell inside – is “horrible advice”, Parker says. Your relationship with fellow inmates is far more important than that with the guards, whom you should keep at arm’s length in case you are seen to be currying favour.
“When I went in, I kept looking to the guards for guidance on what you do and when you do it, and quickly found out that that was absolutely the wrong thing to do,” Parker remembers.
“A mistake I made was being too friendly with too many people,” he adds. “You eventually fall into a routine where you’ll associate with people who look like you, you’ll eat at certain tables in the hall. The advice I give my clients is look for someone who looks like you and get them to teach you the ropes.”
Weinstein’s own situation will be complicated, of course, by the fact that he is now one of the most widely known sex offenders in history. It is likely that he will be placed in protective custody, Parker thinks, to stop him meeting the same fate as James “Whitey” Bulger, the organised crime boss who was beaten to death in his West Virginia cell in October 2018. But this may be no good thing: while shielding him from violent inmates, protective custody usually means less freedom, too.
Although Parker would not recommend it, some ultra-wealthy clients like Weinstein decide to bribe other inmates, either by buying objects such as radios and MP3 players at the prison commissary, or by arranging payments to be made outside prison: “There are probably going to be people around,” says Parker, “think of them as groupies.
‘I liken it to landing in North Korea: the sights, smells and sounds are all alien’
They want to be a wealthy person’s friend.”
In British prisons, Dagworthy advises strongly against any display of largesse, warning that gangs have been known to threaten wealthy inmates with violence unless their families, on the outside, pay up.
But there is no harm, he thinks, in a well-connected inmate such as Weinstein using their education to help others, like Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption (1994), a former accountant who thrives by doling out financial advice. “There’s high levels of illiteracy in prison – they’re getting letters from family or lawyers, and they can’t reply. Anyone who’s able to read and write is always useful.”
Ultimately, Parker says, Weinstein might not have such a terrible time in prison as he expects: “It’s typical for people who are sentenced to long terms in prison to despair. But what eventually happens is that your former life falls away. So it’s not ‘what am I missing – my girlfriend, my family?’ Instead, it’s: ‘On Tuesdays I play the sports league’, or ‘on Thursdays I go watch a movie in the library’. You develop a different life in there. The first six months are really hard. The last six months are also really hard. But the 10 years in between, they’re really not that bad.”
*Name has been changed