Disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein has filed a $5 million claim alleging that he is receiving substandard medical treatment in unhygienic conditions while in custody at the notorious Rikers Island jail complex. The claim, filed by Weinstein's lawyers, is against New York City.

What is Harvey Weinstein alleging?

Weinstein has been in prison since early this year, and has been hospitalised twice for various medical conditions. The legal claim, which seeks $5 million in damages, argues he’d been returned to Rikers each time before he had fully recovered.

The notice of claim is the first step in filing a lawsuit against the city. It accuses the prison facility of failing to manage the former Hollywood producer's medical conditions, which include chronic myeloid leukemia and diabetes. The claim also accuses the facility of negligence ranging from “freezing” conditions to a lack of clean clothes.

The city's law department and Department of Correction did not immediately respond to requests for comment from AP.

“When I last visited him, I found him with blood spatter on his prison garb, possibly from IVs, clothes that had not been washed for weeks, and he had not even been provided clean underwear – hardly sanitary conditions for someone with severe medical conditions,” Weinstein's attorney, Imran H. Ansari, said in a statement, comparing the facility to a “gulag."

The case against Weinstein

The 72-year-old Harvey Weinstein has been in city custody since earlier this year, after the New York Court of Appeals overturned his 2020 rape conviction in the state. Weinstein has denied any wrongdoing. The case is set to be retried in 2025.

Weinstein was briefly hospitalized in April and again in July for health problems. His team has said he's been treated for diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, COVID-19, and fluid in his heart and lungs.

Weinstein's film production company, once the centrepiece of Hollywood, went into bankruptcy proceedings after his convictions, setting up a $17 million fund for a sexual misconduct claims fund.

The Rikers Island jail is slated to be closed in 2027, but the city has pushed back deadlines to do so.

(With AP inputs)

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