Former Hollywood movie producer and convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein was hospitalized following an 'alarming blood test result,' according to his lawyer on Monday night.
Imran Ansari, Weinstein's attorney, informed AFP via email that the 72-year-old was transported to a New York hospital for 'emergent treatment due to an alarming blood test result that necessitates immediate medical attention.' He will stay at the hospital 'until his condition stabilizes,' Ansari added.
US media reported in October that Weinstein was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer. The disgraced producer, currently serving a prison sentence at Rikers Island, 'has been suffering from a lack of adequate medical care and enduring deplorable and inhumane conditions,' Ansari stated.
In the same email, Weinstein's spokesman, Juda Engelmayer, revealed that his client 'is suffering from a number of illnesses, including leukemia' and 'has been deprived of the medical attention that someone in his medical state deserves, prisoner or not.' 'In many ways, this mistreatment constitutes cruel and unusual punishment,' Engelmayer added.
Weinstein had previously been hospitalized in September for emergency heart surgery before being reincarcerated. The co-founder of Miramax Films is set to be retried in New York in 2025, after an appeals court last year overturned his 2020 sentence for raping actress Jessica Mann and sexually assaulting production assistant Mimi Haleyi.
The trial was initially scheduled for November but has since been postponed. Weinstein has appeared in court multiple times due to the proceedings, most recently in October, where he arrived in a wheelchair, looking pale and visibly weakened.
Prosecutors in New York have also charged him in a separate sexual assault case from 2006, to which Weinstein pleaded not guilty, and his attorneys requested a separate trial. The next hearing in this case is scheduled for January 29, during which a new trial date will be set for all charges.
Although Weinstein's conviction in New York was overturned, he remains incarcerated for a separate 16-year prison sentence issued in 2023 by a court in Los Angeles for additional rape and sexual assault charges.
In 2017, the allegations against Weinstein catalyzed the #MeToo movement, a pivotal moment for women combating sexual misconduct. Over 80 women accused him of harassment, sexual assault, or rape, including notable actors Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Ashley Judd. Weinstein has maintained that any sexual relations in question were consensual.
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