Harvey Weinstein hospitalized in New York with COVID-19 and double pneumonia
Former Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, who is awaiting retrial on rape charges in New York, has been hospitalized again.
New York Corrections Department records show that the 72-year-old was transferred from the Rikers Island jail complex in to a locked ward at Bellevue Hospital.
At Bellevue, he is undergoing treatment for COVID-19, double pneumonia and other health conditions, including diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis and fluid on his heart and lungs, his representative told the Associated Press on Thursday.
“We continue to express our gratitude to the officers, doctors and nurses” in the city’s corrections and public hospital systems “who saw to it that Mr. Weinstein was immediately transferred to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward,” said his publicist, Juda Engelmayer, who attributed Weinstein’s health information to his prison consultant, Craig Rothfeld.
Wednesday marked the disgraced movie mogul’s first appearance in court since his 2020 rape conviction was overturned by an appeals court last week.
Engelmayer did not immediately respond Friday to The Times’ request for comment.
Weinstein was previously admitted to Bellevue in late April after an appeals court overturned his 2020 rape conviction.
In May, prosecutors asked for a September retrial during a hearing at a Manhattan courthouse. Weinstein had previously appeared in court using a walker, but appeared at the May preliminary hearing in a wheelchair pushed by a court officer. Defense attorney Arthur Aidala said Weinstein was attending the hearing despite his hospitalization and was undergoing unspecified tests due to health issues.
Aidala added that he had no concerns about his client’s mental abilities, describing Weinstein as “sharp as a tack. As sharp as he ever was,” the AP reported.
Reports later surfaced that alleged the “Shakespeare in Love” and “Pulp Fiction” producer was receiving special treatment at Bellevue, and he was pulled out of the medical center.
After Harvey Weinstein won an appeal to overturn his New York rape conviction, legal experts say he faces a tougher hill to climb as he attempts a similar strategy in his California case.
Weinstein was initially sentenced in 2020 to 23 years in prison in New York after allegedly assaulting former production assistant Mimi Haley and once-aspiring actor Jessica Mann. The state appellate court overturned the conviction last spring, determining that the judge who presided over Weinstein’s 2020 trial prejudiced his case by allowing four women who accused Weinstein of assault to serve as witnesses despite their allegations not being part of the case.
The court ruled that the trial judge also erred in ruling that prosecutors could cross-examine Weinstein about uncharged and decades-old allegations if he decided to testify.
Harvey Weinstein accusers and others in Hollywood have condemned a New York appeals court’s decision to reverse the disgraced producer’s rape conviction.
Weinstein’s New York retrial hinges on whether the women who accused him of assault are willing to testify again. Haley has said that she is still considering it, and prosecutors have said Mann is prepared to testify, suggesting setting a date for a retrial after Labor Day.
Weinstein is due to return to court Aug. 7, jail records said.
The disgraced studio boss was convicted of rape in Los Angeles in 2022 and is still sentenced to 16 years in prison in California.
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