NEW YORK — Harvey Weinstein has been moved to a New York Metropolis hospital after a choose permitted the ailing ex-studio boss’s request to remain there relatively than in jail when he’s not in courtroom for his #MeToo retrial.
Decide Paul Goetz late Thursday ordered that Weinstein be instantly relocated from town’s infamous Rikers Island jail advanced to the jail ward at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan so he can obtain obligatory medical remedy.
Weinstein’s legal professionals lobbied for the transfer as jury choice got underway this week.
They argued in courtroom papers that being locked up in a generally freezing jail cell was exacerbating the Oscar-winning producer’s well being points, which embody power myeloid leukemia, diabetes and strolling difficulties that require a wheelchair to get out and in of courtroom.
Goetz’s order will stay in impact at the very least till subsequent Thursday, when he’s set to carry a listening to to debate the matter additional.
A special choose, Curtis Farber, is presiding over Weinstein’s retrial. The case will resume Monday with extra jury choice after 9 jurors had been picked this week. In all, 12 jurors and 6 alternates have to be seated.
Weinstein is being tried once more on rape and sexual assault expenses after New York’s highest courtroom, the Court docket of Appeals, final 12 months overturned his 2020 conviction and 23-year jail sentence and ordered a brand new trial, discovering that improper rulings and prejudicial testimony tainted the unique one.
Weinstein has pleaded not responsible and denies raping or sexually assaulting anybody.
Weinstein has been backwards and forwards quite a few instances to Bellevue in latest months for remedy of varied maladies. At a pretrial listening to in January, he railed towards his remedy at Rikers, telling Farber he wished to “get out of this hellhole as shortly as potential.”
Weinstein’s legal professionals filed a legal claim towards New York Metropolis final November, alleging he was receiving substandard medical remedy in unhygienic circumstances at Rikers. The declare, which seeks $5 million in damages, argues that Weinstein has been returned to Rikers every time earlier than absolutely recovering on the hospital.
The troubled jail advanced has confronted rising scrutiny for its mistreatment of detainees and harmful circumstances. Final 12 months, a federal choose cleared the best way for a potential federal takeover, discovering town had positioned inmates in “unconstitutional hazard.”
