DISGRACED Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein looked weak and pale as he was wheeled into court to face a new sex charge after getting emergency surgery.
Handcuffed and bandaged, Weinstein, 72, attended a hearing in New York City on Wednesday, two weeks after he was rushed to the hospital from prison.
1
The producer was stone-faced and kept his gaze down while New York police officers escorted him into a Manhattan courtroom, according to pictures taken by the New York Post.
Weinstein used his handcuffed hands to clutch The Woman by Kristen Hannah, which is a 2024 book about a woman who becomes an Army nurse to follow her brother into the Vietnam War.
He pleaded not guilty as he was arraigned on a criminal sex act charge under a new indictment, which has been sealed from public view.
Prosecutors have said a grand jury heard of three alleged assaults that took place in Manhattan hotels in the mid-2000s.
Weinstein saw renewed hope to shorten his sentence after a higher New York court overturned the sentence on a #MeToo era rape conviction.
Another court in the United Kingdom threw out a case against the producer that alleged indecent assault.
However, Weinstein is still serving 16 years due to a 2022 rape conviction in Los Angeles, though his lawyers are arguing in an appeal that he didn’t get a fair trial.
The producer has maintained since the beginning that all of his sexual encounters were consensual.
Surrounding the legal battles is Weinstein’s declining health, which has been an in court topic of conversation since his 2020 conviction.
Weinstein started using walkers and wheelchairs in recent years, and his lawyers say it’s due to his poor jailhouse diet.
According to his attorneys, Weinstein suffers from diabetes and macular degeneration, which can cause worsened vision.
In his emergency surgery, the producer had to get fluid drained from around his heart.
According to his lawyer Arthur Aidala, the producer “almost died” in the hospital.
“He has sort of a shunt in his chest, which is attached to a bag, which is draining fluids from his body,” Aidala said in a hearing after the surgery.
