Harvey Weinstein is being kept in a “fetid” holding cell which is endangering his health, according to the disgraced former movie mogul’s lawyers.
Attorney Mark Werksman told the judge at Weinstein’s latest sexual assault trial that conditions in the courthouse cell where he is being left alone in his wheelchair for three or four hours before being taken back to jail are “almost medieval”.
“He’s 70 years old. I’m worried about him surviving this ordeal without a heart attack or stroke,” he said on Tuesday.
Mr Werksman raised the issue at the beginning of the second day of jury selection in Weinstein’s trial in Los Angeles on 11 counts of rape and sexual assault.
Weinstein was convicted in a New York court in 2020 of sexual assault and rape and is serving a 23-year sentence.
His attorneys have brought up his failing health repeatedly both during his New York trial and in his pre-trial hearings in Los Angeles.
He was hospitalised with chest pains and had a heart procedure immediately after he was found guilty in New York, and was diagnosed with Covid-19 in prison in the first weeks of the pandemic.
His lawyers have said he has diabetes and is “technically blind.” They have asked the judge for permission to see an outside dentist because the one he sees in jail keeps pulling out his teeth.
Weinstein’s trial is expected to last eight weeks. With the slow process of screening and selecting jurors from a pool or more than 200, opening statements are not expected until October 24.
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