Harvey Weinstein Avoids Jail For Now With Hospital Stop After Rape Trial Guilty Verdict

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Harvey Weinstein never made it to jail Monday after being found guilty on multiple counts in his New York rape trial. Instead the disgraced producer is currently at Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital.

Having left the Criminal Courts Building near the Big Apple’s Chinatown Monday afternoon, the already hobbled Weinstein complained of pains while in the ambulance on the way to Rikers Island. En route, the onboard medic made the call that the now-convicted rapist required greater professional treatment and told the driver to head to the hospital on First Avenue.

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Weinstein seemed to be having heart palpitations, a source close to the producer tells me. But they added that he suffers from high blood pressure, and that could be playing a role as well as his other aliments.

It is not known how long the 67-year old Weinstein will be at Bellevue, which is the oldest public hospital in America. However, with a fine infirmary at the East River jail complex, it is doubtful the producer will be at the hospital more than a day or so, if not a few hours. All of which could see him heading to Rikers as his already stated appeal kicks off.

And Weinstein certainly is headed to Rikers. For all its long legacy, Bellevue doesn’t have the capacities of a jail.

Facing a potential sentence of more than 25 years, Weinstein was remanded into custody on Monday after a jury of seven men and five woman found him guilty of two of the five felony counts he was charged with by the Manhattan D.A.’s office.

In court almost every day with a walker and apparently suffering from a number of medical issues, Weinstein is set to be sentenced on March 11 by Empire State Supreme Court Judge James Burke. Defense lawyers raised concerns about their client’s health to keep him out of the clink earlier Monday, but that cut little cloth with Judge Burke, even after Weinstein put up a $2 million bond.

Ever since the first appearance of Weinstein and his tennis ball-cushioned walker, doubts have been raised about how legit the producer’s health issues are. Even with claims of a summer car accident and back surgery, among others, the specter of Weinstein looking for sympathy and a new image to blur the notion of him as a huge man overpowering women repeatedly.

As well as today’s drama, Weinstein could also be facing more justice in a Los Angeles courtroom on rape and sexual battery charges laid out in the Golden State by Los Angeles County D.A. Jackie Lacey on January 6.

With more than 100 women now publicly claiming they were assaulted or harassed by Weinstein, the producer has said all the encounters were consensual.

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