Considering the terrible nature of his crimes, it's no wonder that Harvey Weinstein's life behind bars is even worse than you could imagine.
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
00:00Considering the terrible nature of his crimes, it's no wonder that Harvey Weinstein's life
00:05behind bars is even worse than you can imagine. In March 2020, Harvey Weinstein was sentenced
00:11to 20 years for a first-degree criminal sex act and another three for third-degree rape.
00:16Then, in February 2023, he was sentenced to a further 16 years for another rape.
00:22Weinstein's predatory behavior was pretty much an open secret in the movie world for decades,
00:28and his guilty verdicts were widely celebrated. However, the 2020 sentence was overturned in
00:33April 2024, after a court determined that he hadn't received a fair hearing. In the meantime,
00:39the 2023 conviction remains in place, and he remains behind bars while awaiting retrial.
00:44Plenty of observers have been eager to know what life in prison would be like for Weinstein.
00:49Would he get a cushy, club, fed-style setup, or instead be forced to do hard time?
00:56It soon became clear that the disgraced mogul would have to prepare himself for the latter.
01:01As of 2024, Weinstein is a resident at the infamous Rikers Island Jail in New York City,
01:07specifically the West Facility. The West Facility opened in 1991
01:12and consists of single-cell units, some of which house inmates with contagious diseases.
01:18Unsurprisingly, Weinstein's life inside the jail is far from rosy.
01:22Rikers has a notorious reputation for some very good reasons.
01:26Fifteen inmates died there in 2021 alone, at least six of them from suicide.
01:32A July 2023 report found that the facility was overcrowded, understaffed, dangerous,
01:38filthy, and crawling with cockroaches, mice, and ants, among other vermin.
01:44As Veronica Vela of the Legal Aid Society told CBS News,
01:48We saw showers that are covered in mildew, inches of soap scum, little drainflies coming
01:53out of the drains, and these are areas where people are going to try to get clean.
01:58And as a former inmate told Curbed in September 2021,
02:02There's no correctional officers. They're not feeding people. There's no water,
02:07no showers, no phone calls. There's people there that haven't took showers in two weeks or longer.
02:13You barely eat. They don't care. There were people in cells having seizures,
02:17and they just left them there. I was in a cell with about 30 other people.
02:21You could be sleeping, and they'd spray mace or come banging on the cells for no reason,
02:26just to wake you up.
02:27Hell. Plain and simple, hell.
02:32Clearly, it's safe to say that Harvey Weinstein is not living a pampered life on Rikers Island.
02:38In contrast, he had been enjoying a relatively cushy treatment in Bellevue Hospital's intensive
02:43care unit, where he was admitted in April 2024, after his 2020 conviction was overturned.
02:49He had his own private room with an ensuite bathroom, a dedicated phone line, and a TV.
02:55He reportedly spent his days there lazing in bed watching CNN, chatting with his attorneys,
03:00and ordering Pepsi, as one of his lawyer insisted to The City in May 2024.
03:06He's a sick man. Harvey has multiple health issues, and he's never gotten the level of
03:11care that he received prior to going into custody. However, after doctors evaluated Weinstein,
03:17they determined that he didn't need any specialist treatment for the chest
03:21and abdominal pain his legal team insisted he was suffering from.
03:25So he was then sent straight back to Rikers just days later.
03:29However, it is clear that Weinstein is reportedly struggling with rotting teeth.
03:33As he told a judge in September 2022,
03:36"...I'm in pain every day. I have cavities, and I can't eat because I'm missing teeth."
03:41Weinstein begged the court to allow him to pay for private dental treatment because
03:45the prison service would otherwise just pull his teeth out. Then, in October 2024,
03:50it became clear that that wasn't his only serious health struggle,
03:54as it was reported that he'd been diagnosed with bone marrow cancer.