Awaiting a new New York trial next year on additional sex crimes charges, Harvey Weinstein seems to be wishing he was spending Thanksgiving behind bars at the Wende Correctional Facility near Buffalo and not at Rikers Island.
That’s certainly one of the takeaways from the long-incarcerated and convicted rapist’s lawsuit of “no less than $5,000,000.00” against the city of New York and others over the conditions and medial services at the notoriously violent and decrepit 92-year-old jail.
“This claim seeks monetary damages arising from negligence, carelessness, recklessness, gross negligence, medical malpractice, intentional and/or reckless and/or negligent deprivation of medical treatment, deprivation of civil and constitutional rights, and negligent and intentional torts committed by officers, agents, and employees of the New York City Department of Correction (“NYC DOC”), New York City Health & Hospitals Corporation (“NYC H+H”), Rikers Island Correctional Facility, and New York City Health & Hospitals Corporation/Bellevue (“Bellevue Hospital”),” reads the November 26 filing in New York state court from Weinstein’s Adala, Bertuna & Kamins lawyers.
A point hit home today by one of Weinstein’s legal team.
“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,” defense attorney Imran H. Ansari told Deadline of what she termed “deplorable conditions” in the jail in a statement after the filing. “I questioned whether I was in a prison facility that is supposed to be managed in accordance with our constitution, or a gulag where the prisoners are treated like animals.”
Plagued by illness even during his 2020 sex crimes trial in Manhattan, the now 72-year-old Pulp Fiction producer has been in and out of hospitals even before he was transferred to Rikers from the upstate Wende prison in April after the New York Court of Appeals overturned his New York felony convictions on first-degree sexual assault and third-degree rape, and the subsequent 23 year sentence. Due to his sex crimes convictions in Los Angeles in late 2022, Weinstein remained behind bars, though more often in Bellevue than Rikers.
“While in the custody of Rikers Island Correctional Facility, the Claimant’s medical conditions deteriorated significantly, unreasonably, and dangerously, leading to multiple instances where the Claimant feared for his life. Respondents were on notice of Claimant’s medical condition yet intentionally, recklessly, and/or negligently, failed to render proper medical treatment to Claimant,” the five-page filing from Weinstein defense lawyer Ansari added. “Said conduct fell below the standard of care for medical professionals. Furthermore, the conditions amounted to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of Claimant’s constitutional rights.”
With no small degree of coincidence, the filing comes as a federal judge Wednesday ruled New York City was in contempt for not adequately handling the brutality and growing violence at Rikers. In an often scathing 65-page ruling about ongoing failings of officials to get the aging facility back on track and the “civil contempt of eighteen provisions” already set out to help fix things, Judge Laura Taylor Swain indicated she was considering a return to direct Department of Justice oversight for Rikers.
Even though the New York City Council voted recently to close Rikers by August 2027, that goal looks unlikely, which is why, in part, Swan has given city and prisoner officials until January 14 to put together a receivership strategy for the overstuffed jail.