Harvey Weinstein Jailed In VIP Private Room Inside Bellevue’s ICU

“This story was originally published by THE CITY. Sign up to get the latest New York City news delivered to you each morning.”

Harvey Weinstein is being kept in a private room inside Bellevue Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit on a floor away from all other detainees, THE CITY has learned.

Almost all city detainees with serious medical issues are kept inside the Department of Correction’s medical unit on the 19th floor.

But Weinstein currently has his own phone, bathroom, and television — a perk few, if any, other city detainees are afforded — in a different location in the hospital. He spends most of his day watching CNN and other television programs and talking in person or on the phone to Arthur Aidala, the attorney handling his appeal.

The disgraced movie mogul was moved to the Manhattan public hospital hours after he was brought back to Rikers Island on April 27 when an appeals court tossed his 2020 rape conviction.

Weinstein, 72, was transferred to the hospital following complaints of chest pain, according to a jail source familiar with his case.

He has since been diagnosed with pneumonia, and his legal team says he’s dealing with a host of other serious medical conditions like constant chest and abdominal pain, another jail insider said.

“He’s a sick man,” Weinstein attorney Donna Rotunno told THE CITY. “Harvey has multiple health issues and he’s never gotten the level of care that he received prior to going into custody.”

A former therapist who worked on Rikers questioned why Weinstein has remained in the ICU for so long, noting he’s capable of shaving, showering, and moving out of bed.

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

The city’s Correctional Health Services, which oversees medical care for incarcerated people, did not respond to a request seeking comment.

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

The former Hollywood powerbroker is also being watched by four correction officers from the department’s Emergency Service Unit.

A former top jail official questioned why he was being watched by four ESU officers.

“Does he need ESU? No. Could two regular officers watch him? Probably. He’s certainly not an escape risk,” said Martin Horn, who served as commissioner of the probation and correction departments during the Bloomberg administration.

Most high-profile detainees are housed in the department’s West Facility on Rikers. The jail was originally built to house people with contagious diseases. It is largely empty and detainees placed there, like former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, are typically given their own cells — away from other people locked up.

The city Department of Correction has long struggled to properly treat incarcerated people with complex medical needs. Most are treated at medical clinics located in each of the 10 jail facilities on Rikers.

The Board of Correction, the city jails’ oversight body, has repeatedly cited missed medical visits as a key factor in deaths behind bars since Mayor Eric Adams took over in January 2022.

Most recently, on Friday, the board found that a Rikers detainee who died behind bars earlier this year was without a mattress for 18 hours and only got one outside recreation session in 15 days before he was found unresponsive in his cell.

Manuel Luna, 30, was also not brought to a medical clinic to receive methadone eight times from Oct. 25, 2023, through Jan. 12, 2024, according to the Board of Correction.

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

The city Medical Examiner has not determined the cause of the death.

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

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

“If you can’t keep people alive, then close the jail down,” he added. “If a bakery can’t make bread, you close shop. The same for these jails. You can’t keep holding people there. They’re killing people, and they’re going to keep killing people. There is a trail of bodies left behind by the negligence and abuse.”

The Department of Correction did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Weinstein’s situation isn’t totally different from those of other detainees in the hospital.

The former movie mogul can eat only hospital food and must wear sweats issued by the jail. He was forced to remove a Yankees baseball hat and sweatshirt, according to one of the jail sources.

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

But it is still more convenient than the hours-long screening process that takes place on Rikers.

Until last month, Weinstein was incarcerated at the Mohawk Correctional Facility, about 100 miles northwest of Albany. He was moved back to city custody after New York’s highest court vacated his conviction, ruling that a trial judge unfairly allowed jurors to see and hear evidence that was not directly related to the charges.

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

Weinstein remains 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.