Harvey Weinstein ‘has a whole floor to himself at Rikers where he is under 24 hour surveillance’

Harvey Weinstein has a whole floor to himself at Rikers Island where he is under 24 hour surveillance to protect him from other inmates, according to reports. 

The 67-year-old was convicted of third degree rape and criminal sexual assault on February 24 and was moved to the notorious prison after undergoing a four-hour heart surgery last week. 

He is now being held in isolation on the sixth floor of the main building of the North Infirmary Command, TMZ reports. The space is said to have room for 30 beds. 

Weinstein is said to be under the watchful eye of medics and is being regularly checked on by guards amid concerns he could harm himself. He said to enjoy regular inmate privileges including one hour of recreation, library access and three meals a day. 

The shamed movie producer had been due to immediately go to the North Infirmary Command at Rikers, which is for high profile inmates and inmates with health issues, when he was diverted to Bellevue hospital after the guilty verdict.

He is set to be sentenced on Wednesday. New York prosecutors said in a court filing on Friday he should get a sentence that reflects not only his conviction for sexually assaulting two women, but a ‘lifetime of abuse towards others’.

Harvey Weinstein has a whole floor to himself at Rikers Island where he is under 24 hour surveillance to protect him from other inmates, according to reports

Weinstein is reportedly being held in isolation on the sixth floor of the main building of the North Infirmary Command, pictured. He is said to be under the watchful eye of medics and is being regularly checked on by guards amid concerns he could harm himself

Weinstein had complained of high blood pressure and heart palpitations following his guilty verdict.

A source close to him confirmed to DailyMail.com on Thursday that he underwent a four-hour surgery on Wednesday night to have the stent put in and that he had departed for North Infirmary Command at around 2pm.

An ambulance believed to be carrying Weinstein was later seen pulling up at the infamous prison with its emergency lights on.  

Weinstein was photographed for the first time since his conviction inside his room at Bellevue Hospital. A source close to him confirmed to DailyMail.com on Thursday that he underwent a four-hour surgery on Wednesday night to have the stent put in and that he had departed for North Infirmary Command at around 2pm

An FDNY Ambulance with its emergency lights on is seen at Rikers Island Prison where rapist Harvey Weinstein was apparently taken from Belleview Hospital

Rikers Island prison: A sprawling jail complex and one of America’s most high-profile prisons

The 400-acre lockup, nicknamed Gladiator School, Torture Island and the Guantánamo of New York, has long been plagued by gang brutality, overcrowding, and allegations of human rights violations so severe that Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed in 2017 to close it down within a decade.

Located on the East River between Queens and the Bronx, Rikers Island sits in the shadow of the glittering Manhattan skyline Weinstein is accustomed to enjoying from the comfort of his apartment and now-shuttered offices in Midtown.

Housed partly in the jail’s original hospital building, the North Infirmary Command is not much of a respite, according to people who have worked there.

‘It’s not the cleanest,’ Malissa Allen, a mental health counselor who has treated inmates at the infirmary, said in an interview. ‘It’s a very old jail. A lot of people complain about the smell. It has the old basement smell.’ 

Rikers is one of America’s most high-profile prisons and has incarcerated celebrities including Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, rapper Tupac Shakur and former International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Lawyers and criminologists have been calling for the jail’s closure for years, citing its age and regular violent incidents against inmates and guards that are blamed in part on its remote location, which makes family visits difficult.

Weinstein would likely wear a tan jumpsuit to indicate he has yet to be sentenced.

Throughout his adult life, Weinstein has shown a ‘staggering lack of empathy, treating others with disdain and inhumanity,’ Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s office said in a letter to Justice James Burke.

‘He has consistently advanced his own sordid desires and fixations over the well-being of others,’ prosecutors wrote. ‘He has destroyed people’s lives and livelihoods or threatened to do so on whim.’

Prosecutors did not recommend a specific sentence in the filing for Weinstein, who faces a maximum sentence of 29 years in prison. 

In the filing, prosecutors detailed a litany of allegations starting with a claim by a woman that she woke up in the middle of the night in a Buffalo, New York, hotel room in 1978 to find Weinstein on top of her and ‘forcing himself sexually on her.’

Prosecutors said that encounter fit a pattern that continued for decades: Weinstein getting young women alone in hotel rooms and other settings before sexually attacking them, often while trying to trick them into thinking it was a path to stardom.

One of Weinstein´s lawyers, Arthur Aidala, declined comment on Friday. He said the defense would file a response on Monday.     

On February 24, a jury found the former movie mogul guilty of sexually assaulting former production assistant Mimi Haleyi in 2006 and of raping onetime aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013. 

He was acquitted of rape in the first degree and of two counts of predatory sexual assault which related to the two incidents. He now faces a minimum of four years in prison, but may be put behind bars for up to 29.

In addition to Haleyi, Mann and Sciorra, prosecutors called three more women to testify against Weinstein, portraying him as a serial predator who had manipulated women with promises to open doors in Hollywood, coaxing them to hotel rooms or private apartments, and then overpowering and violently attacking them.

Throughout Weinstein’s trial, the defense said regret drove his accusers to reframe consensual encounters as crimes. Weinstein’s lawyers zeroed in on friendly messages and ongoing contact between the women and Weinstein.

More than 80 women, including famous actresses, have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct stretching back decades, fueling the #MeToo movement against sexual abuse and harassment. He denied the accusations and said any sexual encounters were consensual.

An enhanced supervision housing unit on Rikers Island in New York pictured in March 2015

In Friday’s filing, prosecutors listed more than a dozen accusations going back to 1978, when they said he sexually assaulted an employee of his Buffalo, New York-based music company in a hotel room. 

The prosecutors argued Justice Burke should consider the alleged incidents even though they were never criminally charged.

They also accused Weinstein of verbally and physically abusive behavior in the workplace dating back to the 1990s. 

He still faces sexual assault charges in Los Angeles, which were announced just hours after his New York trial began on January 6. Dozens of women have also filed civil lawsuits against him.

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk