April 16 (UPI) — Disgraced ex-Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein filed an emergency request Wednesday to be sent to Bellevue Hospital from Rikers Island due to a “tongue infection.”
“My clients current state of health is critical,” Weinstein’s attorney Imran H. Ansari wrote Friday in an email to a city prosecutor.
The petition filed Wednesday morning with New York’s lower Supreme Court in Manhattan seeks a temporary restraining order to Weinstein can be “urgently transferred” to receive medical care.
On Tuesday, jury selection began with Weinstein back in court with his retrial over years-long sex crime allegations. Weinstein’s 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges stem from an alleged 2006 assault of an assistant and an alleged rape of an aspiring actress in 2013.
Jury selection could last up to five days for the retrial, according to Judge Curtis Farber, with roughly 30 prospective jurors left by the end of court Tuesday.
His defense attorney has argued no less than three times that Weinstein, 73, may see “possibly death” if he’s not permitted to leave Rikers, known for it’s notorious and inefficient reputation.
“The infection in his tongue is getting worse,” Ansari says.
On Wednesday, Weinstein asked in the court filing to remain in hospital for the duration of his criminal trial due to scores of supposed medical ailments such as obesity, sleep apnea, anemia, heart issues, chronic leg pain, leukemia, and lap band surgery in addition to his tongue.
Weinstein was in Bellevue for a period in November and last spring. It was later reported he received VIP treatment while at Bellevue.
During a Jan. 29 hearing Weinstein asked Farber to move up his retrial date due to a “serious medical condition” and because he wanted to “get out of this hellhole as quickly as possible.”
“Every day I’m at Rikers, it’s a mystery to me how I’m still walking,” Weinstein later told the court in March as he sought a speedier trial.
Weinstein, formerly head of Miramax, was among one of the most influential movie moguls in Hollywood.
A New York jury originally found him guilty, and a judge initially sentenced him to 23 years in prison with his sentence later overturned.
