NEW YORK – Harvey Weinstein was hospitalized Monday after an “alarming blood test,” his lawyer said, less than a week after the disgraced movie mogul has filed a legal claim for substandard medical care in New York City’s infamous prison complex.
Weinstein, 72, was sent to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan for “emergency 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 continued. “His lack of care is not only a medical malpractice, but also a violation of his constitutional rights.”
A spokesperson for the New York City Department of Correction did not immediately respond to an email. The agency’s inmate database confirmed that Weinstein had been transferred Rikers Island to the custodial unit of Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.
Weinstein has been in city custody since earlier this year after the New York Court of Appeals overturned his rape conviction in 2020 in the state. The case will be heard again in 2025. Weinstein has denied any wrongdoing.
Weinstein’s lawyers claim the medical care is substandard
Last week, Weinstein’s lawyers accused the city in a legal filing of providing him with substandard medical care for a litany of medical conditions, including chronic myelogenous leukemia and diabetes.
“When I last visited him, I found him with blood spattered on his prison clothes, possibly from IVs, clothes that had not been washed in weeks, and he had not even been given clean underwear – hardly sanitary conditions for someone with serious medical conditions Ansari said in a statement likening Rikers Island to a “gulag.”
The troubled prison complexlocated on an island in New York City’s East River, is increasingly criticized for its mistreatment of prisoners and dangerous conditions. Last week, a federal judge cleared the way for a possible federal takeover of the prison system, ruling that the city had placed the incarcerated population in “unconstitutional danger.”
A publicist for Weinstein, Juda Engelmayer, reiterated the claim in a statement on Monday.
“Mr. Weinstein, who suffers from a number of illnesses, including leukemia, has been denied the medical care that anyone in his medical condition deserves, prisoner or not,” he said. “In many ways, this abuse constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.”
