Harvey Weinstein hospitalized for emergency heart surgery | US News

Disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein was taken from prison to a New York hospital where he underwent emergency heart surgery after experiencing chest pains, his representatives told US media.

“Mr. Weinstein was admitted to Bellevue Hospital last night due to a variety of health issues,” Weinstein representatives Craig Rothfeld and Juda Engelmayer said in a statement first reported by ABC News.

“We can confirm that Mr. Weinstein had a procedure and surgery on his heart today, however [we] I cannot say more than that. As we have already explained in detail, Mr. Weinstein suffers from a number of serious health problems that require ongoing treatment.”

Weinstein, 72, was transferred to Bellevue from New York's Rikers Island prison complex, where he awaits retrial on rape and sexual assault charges. It is the second time in two months that he has been hospitalized.

He was admitted in July for treatment of various health issues, including Covid-19 and pneumonia in both lungs. Representatives said at the time that the former director and producer also suffered from diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis and fluid buildup in his heart and lungs.

In April, New York State's Supreme Court overturned Weinstein's rape and sexual assault convictions and ordered a retrial. The state's appeals court found that the judge in the 2020 trial improperly allowed testimony from women whose allegations against Weinstein were not part of the case.

But Weinstein now faces new charges in New York, where prosecutors in Manhattan have begun presenting evidence to a grand jury on up to three previously uncharged allegations against Weinstein – two sexual assaults in the mid-2000s and another sexual assault in 2016.

Following the completion of a retrial and any subsequent prison sentence, Weinstein will begin a 16-year prison sentence in California in December 2022 for another rape conviction in Los Angeles, authorities said.

The California jury deliberated for more than nine days and found Weinstein guilty on three counts of rape and sexual assault of a European model and actor who testified as the anonymous “Jane Doe 1.”

The panel continued to disagree on three other charges, rape and sexual assault. Two other accusers, including Jennifer Siebel Newsom, wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom, also disagreed. Weinstein was also acquitted by a fourth woman who had accused him of sexual assault.

More than 90 women have said they were sexually assaulted or harassed by Weinstein over the course of his decades-long career as one of Hollywood's most powerful figures after he founded the Miramax film studio with his brother Bob Weinstein in 1979.

The couple later founded the Weinstein Company and during their time at the two companies produced some of the most notable and successful films in Hollywood history, including “Shakespeare in Love,” “Django Unchained,” “The King's Speech” and “Pulp Fiction.”

But his arrest and conviction in Manhattan exposed Weinstein's dark side and marked a milestone for the #MeToo movement, in which women have accused hundreds of men in entertainment, media, politics and other areas of sexual misconduct.

British prosecutors announced last week that they were dropping two sexual assault charges against Weinstein after concluding that “there is no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.”

The charges relate to an incident in London between 31 July and 31 August 1996, involving a woman who was in her 50s at the time the charges were announced.

The Associated Press contributed to this report