Former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein He was hospitalized this Saturday upon his return to NY after the highest court in that American city overturned his 2020 conviction on charges of sexual crimes.
That tight judicial decision, of 4 votes against 3, surprisingly revoked one of the decisive cases of the #MeToo movementalthough Weinstein will remain imprisoned for a separate 16-year sentence for rape taught in California.
“It seems like he needs a lot of help. He has many problems. They are doing all kinds of tests on him. Your health is a disaster“, the lawyer of the former audiovisual magnate, Arthur Aidala, informed the American press this Saturday.
“Harvey is undergoing a variety of tests and is being kept under observation.”he added.
Aidala specified that his client’s ailments are physical because mentally he remains “firm” and with his “feet firmly planted on the ground.”
Likewise, he criticized the treatment he received, alleging that normally the transfer of prisoners takes one or two weeks but that in his case it took only 24 hours and that they did not even let him go to the bathroom.
”He is a sick 72-year-old man (…) They refused to give him even a sip of water, or food, or a break to go to the bathroom.”, he stressed.
However, Aidala said he still expects the former film producer to appear next Wednesday before the Manhattan Supreme Court as a preliminary step to a possible new trial.
Police informed US media that Weinstein had been transferred to the Bellevue hospital from New York.
Thomas Mailey, A spokesman for the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said Weinstein was turned over to the city’s Department of Corrections pursuant to the appeal ruling.
The court’s ruling this Thursday was approved by a slim majority of 4-3 judges and was based on the fact that several women who claimed to have been victims of Weinstein were improperly called to testify as witnesses, when the accusations they made were not part of of the facts judged.
Weinstein has been serving a sentence of 23 years in a New York state prison after being convicted of forcible practice oral sex to a production assistant in 2006 and for third degree rape in an attack on a young actress in 2013.
After being found guilty in March 2020, he was sent to The Angels to be tried there for other sexual crimes and was again convicted. This last time to 16 years in prison, so the annulment last Thursday would not mean his release, but rather his possible transfer to California to serve the second sentence.
(With information from EFE and AFP)
