Harvey Weinstein undergoes emergency heart surgery at New York hospital

The disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was rushed from prison to a New York City hospital for emergency heart surgery after he experienced chest pains, his representatives told US media.

“Mr Weinstein was rushed to Bellevue Hospital last night due to several medical conditions,” Weinstein representatives Craig Rothfeld and Juda Engelmayer said in a statement first reported by ABC News .

“We can confirm that Mr Weinstein had a procedure and surgery on his heart today, however [we] cannot comment any further than that. As we have extensively stated before, Mr Weinstein suffers a plethora of significant health issues that need ongoing treatment.”

Weinstein was out of surgery as of Monday afternoon and is in recovery, they said.

Weinstein, 72, was transferred to Bellevue from New York’s Rikers Island jail complex, where he is awaiting retrial on rape and sexual assault charges. It is the second time in two months he had been taken to hospital.

Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, said they requested jail officials immediately move Weinstein to Bellevue “based on his complaints to us regarding chest pains.” In one email, Aidala said, he told them: “This guy is going to die on your watch if you don’t do something.”

He was admitted in July for treatment for a variety of health problems including Covid-19 and pneumonia in both lungs. Representatives at the time said the former director and producer also suffered from diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis and fluid on his heart and lungs.

In April, New York’s top court overturned Weinstein’s rape and sexual assault convictions and ordered a new trial. The state’s court of appeals found that the judge in the 2020 trial unfairly allowed testimony from women whose claims against Weinstein were not part of the case.

But Weinstein now faces the prospect of a new indictment in New York , where the Manhattan district attorney’s office has begun presenting evidence to a grand jury of up to three previously uncharged allegations against Weinstein – two sexual assaults in the mid-2000s and another sexual assault in 2016.

After the conclusion of a retrial and any subsequent prison sentence, Weinstein is due to start serving a 16-year sentence in California for a separate rape conviction in Los Angeles in December 2022, authorities said.

The California jury took more than nine days of deliberation to convict Weinstein of three counts of rape and sexual assault against a European model and actor who testified anonymously as “Jane Doe 1”.

The panel remained divided on three other charges of rape and sexual assault by two other accusers, including Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California governor Gavin Newsom. Weinstein was also acquitted of a sexual battery allegation made by a fourth woman.

More than 90 women spoke out about being sexually assaulted or sexually harassed by Weinstein over the course of his decades-long career as one of Hollywood’s most powerful figures following his founding of the Miramax film studio with his brother, Bob Weinstein, in 1979.

The pair went on to found the Weinstein Company, and during their time at the two companies produced some of the most notable and successful movies in Hollywood history, including Shakespeare in Love, Django Unchained, The King’s Speech and Pulp Fiction.

But his arrest and Manhattan conviction exposed Weinstein’s darker side, and was a milestone for the #MeToo movement , in which women accused hundreds of men in entertainment, media, politics and other fields of sexual misconduct.

Prosecutors in the UK last week announced they were discontinuing two indecent assault charges against Weinstein after finding “there is no longer a realistic prospect of conviction”.

The charges related to an incident involving a woman, in her 50s at the time of the announcement of the charges, in London between 31 July and 31 August 1996.

The Associated Press contributed to this report