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Harvey Weinstein underwent heart surgery at a New York hospital on Wednesday and will be transferred to the city’s Rikers Island holding facility, multiple outlets reported Thursday.
The former Hollywood mogul will not mix with the general population; instead, he will be housed in a medical wing in the facility that also offers extra protection to high-profile inmates.
His spokesman, Juda Engelmayer, told Variety that doctors needed to remove a blockage and that the operation was successful.
Weinstein, 67, was convicted on multiple rape charges last month and faces detention at Rikers until his sentencing hearing March 11, at which point he will be transferred to a prison upstate.
A maximum sentence would mean spending 29 years behind bars for forcing a sex act on former production assistant Miriam “Mimi” Haleyi and raping once-aspiring actor Jessica Mann. Jurors declined to convict Weinstein on the most serious charges that would have come with a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Weinstein was remanded into state custody immediately following the Feb. 24 verdict, but complained of chest pain while being driven to Rikers. New York Department of Corrections officials made the decision to reroute him to Bellevue Hospital on Manhattan’s east side for treatment.
Weinstein’s representatives have stressed their client’s health condition throughout the trial and aftermath.
“I’m not going to mince words on it: He’s 67 years old, not in the greatest health to begin with, and now he’s experiencing sincere anxiety and fear of where he was going, and that contributed to his physical condition,” Englemayer told HuffPost last month.
Rikers Island has been plagued by violence and human rights abuses for so long that plans to shut it down are in the works. In the medical wing, however, Weinstein might be able to stay in a “double-size, private cell” with a TV and perhaps a phone, according to The New York Times.
Weinstein still faces criminal charges in Los Angeles on sexual abuse allegations that closely mirror those in New York.
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