Harvey Weinstein was hospitalized Monday following an “alarming blood test,” his lawyer said, less than a week after the disgraced movie mogul filed a legal claim alleging substandard medical care at New York City’s notorious jail complex.
Weinstein, 72, was sent to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan for an “emergent treatment due to an alarming blood test result that requires immediate medical attention,” his lawyer, Imran Ansari, said in a statement.
“It is expected that he will remain there until his condition stabilizes,” the statement continues. “His deprivation of care is not only medical malpractice, but a violation of his constitutional rights.”
A spokesperson for New York City’s Department of Correction did not immediately respond to an email. The agency’s inmate database confirmed that Weinstein had been transferred from Rikers Island to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward in Manhattan.
Weinstein has been in city custody since earlier this year after the New York Court of Appeals overturned his 2020 rape conviction in the state. The case is set to be retried in 2025. Weinstein has denied any wrongdoing.
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In a legal filing last week, Weinstein’s lawyers accused the city of providing him with substandard medical care for a litany of medical afflictions, which include chronic myeloid leukemia and diabetes.
“When I last visited him, I found him with blood spatter on his prison garb, possibly from IV’s, clothes that had not been washed for weeks, and he had not even been provided clean underwear — hardly sanitary conditions for someone with severe medical conditions,” Ansari said in a statement that likened Rikers Island to a “gulag.”
The troubled jail complex, located on an island in New York City’s East River, has faced growing scrutiny for its mistreatment of detainees and dangerous conditions. Last week, a federal judge cleared the way for a possible federal takeover of the jail system, finding the city had placed its incarcerated population in “unconstitutional danger.”
A publicist for Weinstein, Juda Engelmayer, echoed the allegation in a statement Monday.
“Mr. Weinstein, who is suffering from a number of illnesses, including leukemia, has been deprived the medical attention that someone in his medical state deserves, prisoner or not,” he said. “In many ways, this mistreatment constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.”
© 2024 The Canadian Press