Former Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, who is awaiting a retrial on rape charges in New York, has been hospitalized again.
New York Department of Correction records show the 72-year-old man was transferred from the Rikers Island jail complex to a locked ward at Bellevue Hospital.
At Bellevue, he is being treated for COVID-19, double pneumonia and other health conditions including diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis and fluid in his heart and lungs, his representative told the Associated Press on Thursday.
“We continue to express our gratitude to the officers, doctors and nurses” at the city’s prison and public hospital systems “who ensured that Mr. Weinstein was immediately transferred to the Bellevue Hospital correctional wing,” said his publicist, Juda Engelmayer, who attributed Weinstein’s health information to his prison consultant, Craig Rothfeld.
Engelmayer did not immediately respond to The Times' request for comment Friday.
Weinstein was previously admitted to Bellevue in late April after an appeals court overturned his 2020 rape conviction.
In May, prosecutors asked for a new trial in September during a hearing in a Manhattan courtroom. Weinstein had previously appeared in court using a walker, but at the May preliminary hearing he showed up in a wheelchair pushed by a court officer. Defense attorney Arthur Aidala said Weinstein attended the hearing despite his hospitalization and was undergoing unspecified tests due to health problems.
Aidala added that he had no concerns about his client's mental abilities and described Weinstein as “sharp as a rock. Sharp as ever,” AP reported.
Reports later surfaced that the “Shakespeare in Love” and “Pulp Fiction” producer was allegedly receiving special treatment at Bellevue and was removed from the medical center.
Weinstein was initially sentenced in 2020 to 23 years in prison in New York for allegedly assaulting former production assistant Mimi Haley and onetime aspiring actress Jessica Mann. The state appeals court overturned the conviction last spring, ruling that the judge presiding over Weinstein’s 2020 trial prejudiced his case by allowing four women who accused Weinstein of assault to act as witnesses even though their allegations were not part of the case.
The court ruled that the trial judge also erred in ruling that prosecutors could question Weinstein about uncharged, decades-old allegations if he chose to testify.
Weinstein’s retrial in New York hinges on whether the women who accused him of assault are willing to testify again. Haley has said she is still considering it and prosecutors have said Mann is willing to testify, suggesting setting a date for a new trial after Labor Day.
Weinstein is due back in court on Aug. 7, according to jail records.
The disgraced studio boss was Sentenced for rape in Los Angeles in 2022 and is still sentenced to 16 years in prison in California.
