By Michael R. Sisak
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Jailed ex-movie mogul Harvey Weinstein underwent an emergency medical procedure at a New York City hospital on Monday to remove fluid on his heart and lungs after he complained of chest pains over the weekend, his representatives said.
Weinstein, 72, was rushed to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan from the Rikers Island jail complex late Sunday “due to severe medical conditions,” his publicist Juda Engelmayer and prison consultant Craig Rothfeld said.
“We can confirm that Mr. Weinstein had a procedure and surgery on his heart today,” Engelmayer and Rothfeld said. Weinstein was out of surgery as of Monday afternoon and is in recovery, they said.
Rothfeld identified the procedure as pericardiocentesis surgery. He said Weinstein had not been feeling well for several weeks and was worsening by the day.
Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, said they requested that jail officials immediately move Weinstein to Bellevue “based on his complaints to us regarding chest pains.” In one email, Aidala said, he told them: “This guy is going to die on your watch if you don’t do something.”
The city Department of Correction’s public inmate-lookup website was updated Monday to show that Weinstein was moved to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward from the West Facility at Rikers Island, which is used to isolate inmates with contagious diseases such as tuberculosis, or for other reasons.
News of Weinstein’s hospitalization was first reported by ABC News.
Weinstein has been in and out of Bellevue Hospital since returning to Rikers Island from state prison in April after an appeals court overturned his 2020 rape and sexual assault convictions and ordered a new trial.
In July, he was hospitalized with COVID-19 and pneumonia in both lungs, his representatives said.
After his February 2020 conviction, Weinstein left court in an ambulance and detoured to Bellevue, complaining of chest pains and high blood pressure. He later had a stent inserted to unblock an artery.
After his sentencing a few weeks later, he returned to the hospital with more chest pains. He later tested positive for COVID-19 just days after being transferred to a state prison near Buffalo.
In 2021, when Weinstein was being extradited to California for prosecution on rape charges there, his lawyers disclosed a litany of afflictions, including: diabetes, coronary artery disease, anemia, hypertension, obstructive sleep apnea, chronic lower back pain, sciatica, chronic leg pain, arthritis, and eye ailments that had severely degraded his vision. At recent court hearings, he has used a wheelchair.
“As we have extensively stated before, Mr. Weinstein suffers from a plethora of significant health issues that need ongoing treatment,” Engelmayer and Rothfeld said Monday.
The state’s Court of Appeals found that the judge in the 2020 trial unfairly allowed testimony from women whose claims against Weinstein weren’t part of the case.
Last week, prosecutors disclosed that they’ve begun taking steps to potentially charge him with up to three additional sex assaults.
They said they’ve started presenting evidence to a grand jury of up to three previously uncharged allegations against Weinstein -– two sexual assaults in the mid-2000s and another sexual assault in 2016.
A vote on a potential new indictment was expected soon.
At the same time, British prosecutors said last week they were dropping two charges of indecent assault against Weinstein in 2022 because there was “no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.’’
Weinstein has denied that he raped or sexually assaulted anyone. He remains in custody in New York while awaiting a retrial in Manhattan that’s tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12. He is due back in court for a pretrial hearing Sept. 12.
Weinstein became the most prominent villain of the #MeToo movement, which took root in 2017 when women began to go public with accounts of his behavior.
At the original trial, Weinstein was convicted of forcibly performing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006 and rape in the third degree for an attack on an aspiring actor in 2013. Those allegations will be part of his retrial. Weinstein’s acquittals on charges of predatory sexual assault and first-degree rape still stand.
After the retrial, Weinstein is due to start serving a 16-year sentence in California for a separate rape conviction in Los Angeles, authorities said. Weinstein was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022.
Weinstein, the co-founder of Miramax and The Weinstein Company film studios, was once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, producing such Oscar winners as “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love.”