Harvey Weinstein hospitalised with COVID

Jailed Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was moved to a New York hospital on Thursday with multiple ailments including COVID, his representatives said in a statement.

New York City Correction Department records showed on Thursday that Weinstein, 72, was at the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward.

Weinstein, convicted on rape charges in New York and California, suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, fluid on his heart and lungs, and recently tested positive for COVID and had contracted double pneumonia, said the statement issued by publicist Juda Engelmayer, citing Craig Rothfeld, Weinstein's authorised representative and prison consultant.

Jurors in Manhattan found him guilty of rape charges in February 2020, but the New York Court of Appeals threw out the conviction in April, finding Weinstein did not get a fair trial because a judge improperly allowed testimony by accusers he was not formally charged with assaulting.

Weinstein, who has been hospitalised at Bellevue multiple times, has denied wrongdoing and has denied having non-consensual sexual encounters with anyone.

He could be retried on rape charges in Manhattan as soon as September. Weinstein's lawyers said they want to proceed as soon as possible.

Prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office have said they intend to charge Weinstein for "additional violent sexual assaults" after more women agreed to testify.

Weinstein's conviction was a milestone for the #MeToo movement, in which women accused hundreds of men in entertainment, media, politics and other fields of sexual misconduct.

A jury found the Miramax film studio co-founder sexually assaulted former production assistant Miriam Haley in 2006 and raped aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

Weinstein was also sentenced to 16 years following a separate rape trial in California.