Harvey Weinstein was hospitalised on Monday following an “alarming blood test”, his lawyer said, less than a week after the disgraced movie mogul filed a legal claim alleging substandard medical care at New York City’s notorious prison complex.
“It is expected that he will remain there until his condition stabilises,” the statement continues. “His deprivation of care is not only medical malpractice, but a violation of his constitutional rights.”
A spokesman for New York City’s Department of Correction did not immediately respond to an email. The agency’s inmate database confirmed that Weinstein had been transferred from Rikers Island to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward in Manhattan.
In a legal filing last week, Weinstein’s lawyers accused the city of providing him with substandard medical care for a litany of medical afflictions, which include chronic myeloid leukaemia and diabetes.
“When I last visited him, I found him with blood spatter on his prison garb, possibly from IV’s, clothes that had not been washed for weeks, and he had not even been provided clean underwear – hardly sanitary conditions for someone with severe medical conditions,” Ansari said in a statement that likened Rikers Island to a “gulag”.
