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Harvey Weinstein is being subjected to medical negligence in one of the country’s most notorious jails, his attorney said in a legal notice filed Tuesday against the New York City Department of Correction.
Weinstein’s attorney alleges that the disgraced film producer’s medical treatment at Rikers Island “amounts to cruel and unusual punishment” and that the facility is like “a gulag where the prisoners are treated like animals.” Weinstein is being held at Rikers while he awaits retrial next year after his felony sex crimes conviction in New York was overturned.
In a statement accompanying the filing, which seeks $5 million in damages, attorney Imran H. Ansari wrote:
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 and susceptibility to illness.
The statement added: “The disregard to Mr. Weinstein’s medical needs is an example as to why Rikers Island has been under the intense scrutiny by officials and the public, and is the subject of federal oversight.”
New York City’s mayor’s office, Department of Correction and public hospital system did not immediately respond to NBC News’ requests for comment.
Rikers Island is known as one of the most violent and dangerous jails in the U.S., with a trail of human rights abuse allegations.
Weinstein, 72, has dealt with a string of medical issues in recent years. He reportedly was undergoing treatment for bone marrow cancer last month. Weinstein was transferred to Rikers after a New York state appeals court overturned his landmark sex crimes conviction in April and has since been to Bellevue Hospital several times for a range of medical treatments.
Rikers Island is known as one of the most violent and dangerous jails in the U.S., with a trail of human rights abuse allegations. In 2019, New York City officials agreed to shutter the facility by August 2027, but the city appears unlikely to meet that deadline.
On Wednesday, a federal judge found New York City and its Department of Correction in contempt of the court over the worsening conditions in its correctional facilities, including Rikers, and said she was inclined to remove the facilities from the city’s control.