Politics
Harvey Weinstein Is Hospitalized for Emergency Heart Surgery
The disgraced Hollywood mogul, who has been held on Rikers Island since April, is scheduled to return to court in New York later this month.
Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood mogul who has been held at the Rikers Island jail complex in New York City since April, was rushed on Sunday evening to Bellevue Hospital for emergency heart surgery, according to his lawyer.
Mr. Weinstein, 72, contacted Craig Rothfeld, his jail consultant, several times over the weekend to tell him that he was not feeling well, according to Arthur Aidala, Mr. Weinstein’s lawyer. “This guy is going to die on your watch if you don’t do something,” Mr. Aidala said he and Mr. Rothfeld wrote in emails to officials at Rikers and Bellevue before Mr. Weinstein was taken to the hospital on Sunday evening.
Mr. Weinstein underwent surgery on Monday morning and is in recovery, Mr. Rothfeld said on Monday afternoon. “Mr. Weinstein suffers a plethora of significant health issues that need ongoing treatment,” he said.
The hospitalization comes months after a court overturned Mr. Weinstein’s 2020 conviction on sex-crimes charges in New York, and after a Manhattan judge set Nov. 12 as a tentative date for the start of jury selection in a new sexual assault case.
Mr. Weinstein, who had been helped into court in a wheelchair in July, is scheduled to return to court later this month.
Mr. Weinstein was indicted in Manhattan in 2018 on charges of rape and criminal sexual act. He was found guilty, but in a 4-to-3 decision in April, New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, overturned the conviction, arguing that because witnesses whose allegations were not connected to the charges had been allowed to testify, he had not received a fair trial.
Mr. Weinstein has also been sentenced to 16 years in prison in a separate sex-crimes case in Los Angeles.
