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Harvey Weinstein was back in a New York City courtroom on Thursday as authorities consider California’s extradition request for him to serve his pending sentence for a rape conviction in Los Angeles, following the decision to overturn his New York sentence.
Having just left a city hospital days before, Mr Weinstein, 72, showed up for the hearing in a wheelchair, wearing a dark suit for the hearing, held in Queens criminal court on Thursday morning, in relation to California’s request, according to both prosecutors and defense attorneys.
The disgraced movie mogul will remain behind bars in New York as a court works out whether he should stay in the state awaiting a retrial in a rape case, or if he should be sent back to California to continue serving his other prison sentence.
Mr Weinstein denied his consent for an extradition request from California during the brief court hearing, with his attorney saying that the hearing was normal procedure, and that California first needs to produce a warrant signed by the governor.
“They are not in a position to extradite Mr Weinstein because they have not done what they need to do,” attorney Diana Fabi Samson said outside court, according to the Associated Press.
Ms Samson added that their main concern currently is making sure that Mr Weinstein continues to receive medical care while he remains in New York custody.
“He’s holding up the best he can,” the attorney said.
Mr Weinstein was receiving medical treatment at a New York City hospital after complaining about getting chest pains shortly after he was moved to Rikers Island jail on 27 April.
However, he was returned to the jail after corrections officers found he was staying in a private room and was given “special treatment” that other inmates would not usually get.
He is due to appear back in court on 7 August.
Already serving time in another sentence, Mr Weinstein was given a 16-year sentence by a Los Angeles judge in 2023 for raping a woman at a 2013 Los Angeles film festival, but this has been on hold while he served time in New York after being found guilty of another rape in Manhattan in 2020.
In the Los Angeles trial, he was found guilty of one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault against an Italian model and actor during at the film festival in the run-up to that year’s Academy Awards, but Mr Weinstein maintained his innocence.
The woman made a statement to the court back in 2023 describing the toll Weinstein’s actions took on her.
“Before that night I was a very happy and confident woman. I valued myself and the relationship I had with God,” she said. “I was excited about my future. Everything changed after the defendant brutally assaulted me. There is no prison sentence long enough to undo the damage.”
He was due to carry out this sentence after his 2020 New York sentence; however, late last month, the disgraced producer’s 2020 landmark #MeToo rape conviction was overturned after the New York Court of Appeals found that a judge had made a series of questionable decisions during the trial.
Weinstein was found guilty in 2020 in a separate sentence from the Californian case of raping and assaulting two women and was 23 years at a prison in upstate New York.
Mr Weinstein was returned to New York and was moved to Rikers Island from the upstate prison, as Manhattan’s district attorney is now working to retry him.
“We will do everything in our power to retry this case, and remain steadfast in our commitment to survivors of sexual assault,” a spokesperson for Mr Bragg’s office told The Independent in late April.
Prosecutors claimed in a hearing last week that they could be ready as soon as September and that at least one of two alleged victims was willing to testify again.
Meanwhile, Mr Weinstein’s spokesperson Juda Engelmeyer says that now the Hollywood mogul is “no longer a convicted felon in New York, California is obligated to request his presence to begin serving his 16-year sentence there,” he told the New York Post.
“As he’s not technically a criminal in New York, he’s technically a fugitive of California justice. It’s Gavin Newsome’s way of showing his electorate that he’s ‘doing something’ about Harvey,” Mr Engelmeyer said.
