BREAKING NEWS: Harvey Weinstein ‘has coronavirus’: Rapist, 68, ‘tests positive and is put in isolation’ just days after he was moved from Rikers Island to an upstate NY prison to start his 23-year sentence
- A source told DailyMail.com on Sunday: ‘He tested positive and is quarantined’
- Weinstein, 68, is isolated at Wende Correctional Facility in Western New York
- The shamed producer told prison staff he believed he has the virus when he entered the state prison system last Wednesday from notorious Rikers Island
- Coronavirus symptoms: what are they and should you see a doctor?
Rapist Harvey Weinstein has reportedly tested positive for coronavirus.
Weinstein, who turned 68 last Thursday, is being isolated at Wende Correctional Facility in Western New York.
Weinstein is said to have told prison staff he believed he has the virus when he entered the state prison system last Wednesday from notorious Rikers Island where a number of inmates have the virus.
A source told DailyMail.com: ‘He tested positive and is quarantined.’
Weinstein is serving a 23-year sentence for rape and sexual assault. DailyMail.com has contacted his spokesman for comment.
New York City was hit by the nation’s largest coronavirus jail outbreak to date this week, with at least 38 people testing positive at the notorious Rikers Island complex and nearby facilities – more than half of them incarcerated men, the board that oversees the city’s jail system said Saturday.
Disgraced film mogul and convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein has contracted coronavirus
Rikers Island jail complex in New York. More than three dozens of people have tested positive for coronavirus in New York City jails, including at the notorious Rikers Island jail complex, the board that oversees the city’s jail system said Saturday
The board overseeing New York City’s jails urged officials to start releasing vulnerable populations and those being held on low-level offenses as the coronavirus outbreak hit the notorious Rikers Island complex.
‘Fewer people in the jails will save lives and minimize transmission among people in custody as well as staff,’ Board of Correction interim chairwoman Jacqueline Sherman wrote in a letter to New York’s criminal justice leaders this weekend.
‘Failure to drastically reduce the jail population threatens to overwhelm the City jails’ healthcare system as well its basic operations.’
Sherman pushed for the release of more than 2,000 people in custody in New York City jails, including those over 50 years old; those with health conditions such as lung and heart disease; those being held for parole violations, such as missing a curfew; and those serving sentences of less than a year.
Such steps are needed, she said, to stem the tide of COVID-19.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said 23 inmates were set to be released Sunday, all older and at a low risk of offending again, and 200 additional inmates were being reviewed for release.
More than 2.2 million people are incarcerated in the United States — more than anywhere in the world — and there are growing fears that an outbreak could spread rapidly through a vast network of federal and state prisons, county jails and detention centers.
An FDNY Ambulance with its emergency lights on is seen at Rikers Island Prison where rapist Harvey Weinstein was apparently taken from Belleview Hospital
It’s a tightly packed, fluid population that is already grappling with high rates of health problems and, when it comes to the elderly and the infirm, elevated risks of serious complications. With limited capacity nationally to test for COVID-19, men and women inside worry that they are last in line when showing flu-like symptoms, meaning that some may be infected without knowing it.
The first positive tests from inside prisons and jails started tricking out just over a week ago, with less than two dozen officers and staff infected in facilities spanning from California and Michigan to Pennsylvania. New cases pop up almost every day.