This is not the first time that the former Hollywood movie mogul, imprisoned at Rikers Island in New York for rape and sexual assault, has been hospitalized for health problems.
The fallen producer king of Hollywood Harvey Weinstein, in prison in New York for rape and suffering in particular from leukemia, was hospitalized after “alarming blood tests”announced his lawyer and his spokesperson Monday, December 2 evening. The 72-year-old former master of American cinema, who will have to be retried in New York in 2025 for rape and sexual assault, was hospitalized following a “alarming blood test result that required immediate medical attention”lawyer Imran Ansari said in an email to AFP. He will stay in the hospital “until his condition stabilizes”added Harvey Weinstein's advice.
Incarcerated in New York at Rikers Island prison, the former producer, whom the media claimed at the end of October was suffering from bone marrow cancer, “is deprived of care, which constitutes not only a medical malpractice, but also a violation of his constitutional rights”thundered Me Ansari. In the same email, a spokesperson for Harvey Weinstein, Juda Engelmayer, recalls that his client “suffers from numerous illnesses, including leukemia” et “lack of medical care”, which is similar to “ill-treatment constituting cruel and unusual punishment”.
Harvey Weinstein had already been urgently hospitalized in September for a “heart surgery”before being reincarcerated. He then appeared in a Manhattan court for procedural hearings, the last time at the end of October on a wheelchair, pale and visibly diminished. The former boss of Miramax studios must be retried in 2025 in New York after the resounding annulment last April by an appeals court of his conviction in 2020 to 23 years in prison for the rape of an actress, Jessica Mann, and the sexual assault of a production assistant, Mimi Haleyi.
Accused by more than 80 women
A new trial was scheduled to begin on November 12, but in the meantime Manhattan prosecutors had indicted him for another alleged sexual assault in a Manhattan hotel in the spring of 2006, a charge to which he pleaded not guilty and requested a separate trial. The next procedural hearing will be held on January 29 to normally set a trial date for the entire proceedings. Even though his New York conviction was overturned, Harvey Weinstein remains incarcerated because he was sentenced in 2023 to 16 years in prison by a Los Angeles court for other cases of rape and sexual assault.
The revelations in 2017 about this former kingmaker in Hollywood had triggered the global shock wave #Metoo and freed the words of victims. More than 80 women have accused him of harassment, sexual assault or rape, including Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow and Ashley Judd.
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