Hospitalized Harvey Weinstein kept away from other detainees in special medical unit at Bellevue Hospital

Reuven Blau of the City

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Harvey Weinstein is being held in a private room inside Bellevue Hospital’s intensive care unit on a floor away from other detainees, the City has learned.

Almost all municipal inmates with serious medical problems are housed within the correctional department’s medical unit on the 19th floor.

But Weinstein now has his own phone, bathroom and television — few perks, if any, of other city inmates — in a separate area of ​​the hospital. He spends most of the day watching CNN and other television programs and talking in person or on the phone with Arthur Aidala, the lawyer handling his claim.

The disgraced movie mogul was transferred to Manhattan Public Hospital hours after being brought back to Rikers Island on April 27 when court of appeals thrown away his rape conviction in 2020.

Weinstein, 72, was rushed to the hospital after complaining of chest pain, according to a prison source familiar with his case.

He has since been diagnosed with pneumonia, and his legal team says he is dealing with a number of other serious medical conditions such as persistent chest and abdominal pain.

“He is a sick man,” Weinstein’s lawyer Donna Rotunno told the city. “Harvey has a number of health issues and has never received the level of care he received prior to his arrest. “

A former therapist who worked at Rikers questioned why Weinstein has stayed in the ICU so long and said he was able to shave, shower and move out of bed.

“He’s not supposed to be there,” said the clinician, who asked to remain anonymous. “It’s a special treatment. “

The city’s correctional health services, which oversees medical care for inmates, did not respond to a request for comment.

Prison officials briefly tried to move Weinstein to the 19th-floor unit last week, but he was sent back to his ICU room, according to prison sources.

Four corrections officers from the department’s emergency services unit are also monitoring the former Hollywood power mogul.

A former senior prison officer questioned why he was being watched by four ESU officers.

“Does he need ESU? Couldn’t. Could two ordinary officers look at it? Maybe. He’s certainly not an escape risk,” said Martin Horn, who served as commissioner of the Department of Corrections during the Bloomberg administration.

Struggle for proper treatment of detainees

Most of the high-profile inmates are housed in the department’s western facility on Rikers. The prison was originally built to hold people with infectious diseases. It is mostly empty and detainees there, such as former Trump Organization CEO Allen Weisselberg, are usually given their own cells – away from other inmates.

The city’s corrections department has long struggled to properly treat incarcerated people with complex medical needs. Most are treated at medical clinics located in each of the 10 prison facilities on Rikers.

The board of corrections, the governing body of the city’s prisons, has mentioned time and time again has lost medical visits as a major factor in deaths behind bars since Mayor Eric Adams took over in January 2022.

Recently, on Friday, find the table that a Rikers inmate who died behind bars earlier this year was without a mattress for 18 hours and received only one outdoor recreation session in the 15 days before he was found unresponsive not a cell.

Manuel Luna, 30, was also not taken to a medical clinic to receive methadone eight times from October 25 to January 12, according to the corrections board.

Luna, who was accused of stealing an e-bike, was found unresponsive inside his cell at the George R Vierno center on January 19. Known as Panda to his friends, he was moved to that new housing area shortly before his death, the Daily News reported reported.

The city medical examiner has not determined the cause of death.

Luna was a “loving person” who “always loved to make people laugh,” his brother, Angel Luna, told the city.

In prison, he and others “are not treated like human beings,” he said.

“If you can’t keep people alive, shut the prison down,” he said. “If your bakery can’t make bread, you close the shop. Same for those prisons. You can’t keep holding people there. They are killing people, and they are going to keep killing people. There is a trail of bodies left behind by their neglect and abuse.”

The corrections department did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Weinstein’s situation is not entirely different from that of other detainees at the hospital.

Weinstein can only eat hospital food and has to be released from prison. He had to remove his Yankees baseball hat and sweatshirt, according to one of the prison sources.

His visitors must also go to the 19th floor first to be screened and searched before being allowed to meet him, prison insiders said.

But it’s still more convenient than the hour-long screening process that takes place on Rikers.

The decision suspended his 23-year prison sentence and called for a retrial.

Weinstein is still in prison because in 2022 he was convicted of another rape in Los Angeles. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison in that case.