According to representatives of the former film mogul, Harvey Weinstein is in hospital in New York City after emergency heart surgery.
“At our urging, he was taken to the hospital last night and after examination, the medical team decided to perform surgery,” Arthur Aidala, one of Weinstein’s lawyers, confirmed to CBS News.
Weinstein, 72, was transferred from the Rikers Island prison complex to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan “due to his serious health condition,” his publicist Juda Engelmayer and prison consultant Craig Rothfeld told the Associated Press.
“We can confirm that Mr. Weinstein has undergone a procedure and surgery on his heart,” the couple said, declining further comment.
The development was first reported by ABC News.
The disgraced Hollywood personality is awaiting retrial for rape and Charges of sexual assault in Manhattan.
After the New York case is over, Weinstein must return to California to serve a 16-year prison sentence for another rape conviction.
He was sentenced in Los Angeles in 2022, while already serving a a 23-year-old verdict in New York. But his first conviction in 2020 in Manhattan was thrown out The New York State Supreme Court ruled this spring that the judge had wrongly allowed testimony based on allegations made outside of the trial.
Weinstein has denied raping or sexually abusing anyone.
Weinstein has been in and out of Bellevue Hospital since returning from federal prison to Rikers Island in April.
He was hospitalized in July with health problems including COVID-19 and pneumonia in both lungs, his representatives said.
Weinstein became the most notorious villain of the #MeToo movement, which emerged in 2017 when women began coming forward with accounts of his alleged behavior.
In the original trial, Weinstein was found guilty of forcing oral sex on a television and film production assistant in 2006 and raping an aspiring actor in 2013. Those charges will be addressed in his new trial.
Weinstein, co-founder of the film studios Miramax and The Weinstein Company, was once one of the most powerful men in Hollywood and produced Oscar-winning films such as “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love.”
— The Associated Press contributed to this report.
