Lawyers: Weinstein Is Being Neglected in 'Gulag'

Harvey Weinstein is taking legal action against New York City over jail conditions one of his lawyers likens to "a gulag where the prisoners are treated like animals." A legal claim filed Tuesday is the first step toward a lawsuit against the city, NBC News reports. Attorney Imran H. Ansari said that when he last visited Weinstein at the notorious Rikers Island facility, he "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."

Weinstein, 72, has been in city custody since his state sex crime convictions were overturned in April. More charges have been added ahead of a retrial. In the legal notice, Ansari accuses the city of failing to provide "timely and adequate care" for Weinstein's medical conditions, which he said include "chronic myeloid leukemia (bone marrow cancer), "diabetes, coronary artery disease, obstructive sleep apnea, thyroid issues, obesity, high blood pressure, and chronic back pain," per USA Today.

Ansari said the "treatment, or lack thereof" that Weinstein is receiving at Rikers "not only amount to medical negligence, it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment." Weinstein plans to seek $5 million in damages. He has been hospitalized multiple times this year with ailments including COVID and double pneumonia. He had emergency heart surgery in September. The legal claim argues that each time, Weinstein was returned to Rikers from Bellevue Hospital before he had fully recovered, the AP reports. (More Harvey Weinstein stories.)