Weinstein sent to jail hospital
Former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was taken to a prison ward inside Bellevue Hospital in New York yesterday for testing, days after an appeals court in the city overturned his 2020 rape conviction.
Weinstein’s publicist, Juda Engelmayer, and his lawyer, Arthur Aidala, both confirmed that Weinstein, 72, was transferred from the Rikers Island jail complex to the Manhattan hospital.
Engelmayer said that Weinstein had been in custody at a regional medical unit that was part of a correctional facility in Upstate New York. When he was transferred to New York City, Engelmayer said, the trip “triggered some of [Weinstein’s] health issues that warranted closer monitoring”.
Weinstein, who has faced health problems over the years, had been serving a 23-year sentence at a correctional facility in Upstate New York, and was transferred to a medical ward at Rikers following Friday’s appeals court decision. He was hospitalised in early 2020 for heart and blood pressure issues, around the time of his sentencing in New York. He is due to be in Manhattan Supreme Court on Thursday.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office has pledged to “do everything in our power” to retry the rape case.
Even after the appeals court ruling, Weinstein is expected to remain in prison because he also faces a 16-year sentence in a separate case in California, where he was convicted in 2022 of rape. The New York reversal – a 4-3 decision – nevertheless outraged sexual violence survivors, their advocates and judges who dissented in the appeals court decision.