Former Hollywood producer, Harvey Weinstein has been rushed from a New York City jail to a hospital for emergency heart surgery.
“Mr Weinstein was rushed to Bellevue Hospital last night due to several medical conditions,” Weinstein representatives Craig Rothfeld and Juda Engelmayer said in a statement, first reported by ABC News.
“We can confirm that Mr Weinstein had a procedure and surgery on his heart today however cannot comment any further than that.”
“As we have extensively stated before, Mr Weinstein suffers a plethora of significant health issues that need ongoing treatment,” they added.
“We are grateful to the executive team at the New York City Department of Correction and Rikers Island for acting swiftly in taking him to Bellevue Hospital.”
Weinstein is due in court this week in New York, where prosecutors had been presenting evidence to a grand jury as they work to secure a new indictment against him on sex crimes charges.
The 72-year-old was found guilty of rape and jailed for 23 years in the United States in 2020 in a milestone for the #MeToo movement, in which women accused hundreds of men in entertainment, media, politics and other fields of sexual misconduct.
However, the New York Court of Appeals threw out the Manhattan conviction in April, finding the Miramax film studio co-founder did not get a fair trial because a judge improperly allowed testimony by accusers he was not formally charged with assaulting.
He faces a possible retrial in November.
A court in Los Angeles in 2022 also convicted him of raping an actress in the city, and he was sentenced to 16 years in prison. That conviction was not affected by the New York court’s decision, and he has not begun serving the California sentence.
Last Thursday, UK prosecutors said they had discontinued indecent assault charges against Weinstein after concluding there was no realistic chance of securing a conviction.
Weinstein has denied wrongdoing and has denied having non-consensual sexual encounters with anyone.