Harvey Weinstein asked the judge for permission for emergency dental care, according to the New York Post. Lawyers for the disgraced producer, who is in jail ahead of an October court hearing, said their client has rotten teeth but cannot receive adequate treatment in prison. A local dentist offered Weinstein two options: pull out all his teeth or suffer from caries further.
With a complaint about the state of the oral cavity and a request to leave the prison to the dentist, Weinstein turned to the court at a preliminary hearing. “This situation is an emergency,” he said, sitting in a wheelchair. – I will pay for the dentist... it will be one and only one trip. I hurt every day. I have cavities and I can't eat because I don't have teeth." Weinstein intends to make a prosthesis to look "presentable" in court.
This is not the first time Weinstein's lawyers have said that their client's health is inevitably deteriorating. Last year, they petitioned the court to have him undergo eye surgery and be allowed not to wear prison overalls. "He can't walk and he can't see," Mark Werksman, the producer's lawyer, said at the time. The current denial of dental care is a violation of Weinstein's constitutional rights, Werksman said, and the hole in his mouth makes him "ridiculous" and "cartoonish."
The 70-year-old producer is serving a 23-year prison sentence in New York. In 2020, a jury found him guilty of sexually assaulting two women. On October 10, he will have a hearing on the case of sexual abuse of five women.