It’s better in Bellevue.
Jailed Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein filed an emergency request to send him from Rikers back to his cushy setup at Bellevue Hospital — where he reportedly watched CNN for hours on end — because of a worsening tongue infection, according to a newly filed lawsuit.
Weinstein’s emergency partition, filed early Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, seeks a temporary restraining order so he can be “urgently transferred” and receive medical care.
Harvey Weinstein attends his retrial on rape and sex assault charges at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City, on April 16, 2025. POOL/AFP via Getty ImagesHis lawyers once again argued, for at least a third time, that if he’s not allowed to ditch Rikers for Bellevue, it could result in “possibly death.”
“My client’s current state of health is critical,” lawyer Imran H. Ansari wrote in an email to a city lawyer on Friday. “The infection of his tongue is getting worse.”
Ansari claims Weinstein is retaining water, gaining weight and had been vomiting on his last court date due to his spate of health issues.
Weinstein has requested a prison transfer due to his medical condition. AP“I am placing you on notice,” reads the email filed in court papers on Wednesday. “My client is not receiving the treatment he requires.”
His petition requests that he remain in the hospital for the entirety of his criminal trial due to a laundry list of ailments including his tongue, obesity, sleep apnea, anemia, lap band surgery, leukemia, heart issues and chronic leg pain.
While at Rikers, the disgraced #MeToo moviemaker has “feared for his life” due to the notorious jail’s “negligence and gross mismanagement of Weinstein’s conditions,” claiming he’s caught COVID and pneumonia due to the “freezing cold environments” and missing medication.
A jail cell in the Enhanced Supervision Housing Unit at Rikers Island. REUTERSWeinstein, 73, was last bedded at Bellevue in November. During another stay last spring, he was shipped back to Rikers after reports of VIP treatment were exposed.
All the while, day two of jury selection in Weinstein’s sex crime retrial is unfolding in a Manhattan courtroom. He could face up to 25 years in prison on two counts of first-degree criminal sexual act, and four years in prison on a charge of third-degree rape.
Weinstein’s original 2020 conviction was overturned last year by New York’s Court of Appeals, nullifying his 23-year sentence.
Three accusers are expected to face off against the Miramax founder, with two of the women expected to take the stand once again to recount how the “Shakespeare in Love” producer sexually assaulted them.
Not a single peer has been picked to serve so far.
Weinstein, considered to be the #MeToo poster boy, was also convicted of rape in a separate California trial, where he was accused of attacking an Italian model at a film festival in 2013. He is currently appealing his 16-year prison sentence.






