(New York) Former Hollywood producer and king Harvey Weinstein, in prison for rape, is “out of danger” after his “heart surgery,” one of his representatives, Juda Engelmayer, said Tuesday.
“He is resting, he is weak,” but “out of danger for the moment,” the spokesperson told AFP.
In prison in New York at Rikers Island, the fallen king of Hollywood had to be “quickly transported” on the night of Sunday to Monday to a hospital in the city for “heart surgery”, his representatives, Craig Rothfeld and Juda Engelmayer, had declared, without giving details on this intervention.
A new procedural hearing is scheduled for Thursday at the New York court, where Harvey Weinstein will be retried after an appeals court in late April overturned his 2020 conviction for the 2013 rape of an actress, Jessica Mann, and the 2006 sexual assault of a production assistant, Mimi Haleyi.
This turnaround was seen as an affront and a step backwards for the #metoo movement, launched with the Weinstein affair, against sexual and sexist violence against women.
The revelations in 2017 about the sexual assaults of the former boss of Miramax had triggered a global shockwave and freed the speech of many victims. More than 80 women accused him of harassment, sexual assault or rape, including Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow and Ashley Judd.
Harvey Weinstein has always maintained that sex was consensual.
Despite the overturning of the New York verdict, he is being held pending a 2023 conviction in Los Angeles to 16 years in prison for other rape and sexual assault charges.