Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench heard a plea Wednesday from disgraced Hollywood producer and convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein’s lawyers on an unusual request: A trip to the dentist.
According to the New York Post, Weinstein himself pleaded with the judge after being wheeled into the courtroom clad in prison garb.
“This situation is an emergency,” Weinstein pleaded, according to the Post. “I will pay for the dentist … It will be one trip and one trip only.”
Lench was quick to inform him though that while he could pay for transportation and the dental work, there would still be a manpower requirement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, making the request abnormal.
Harvey Weinstein begs judge to stop prison dentist from pulling his rotten teeth https://t.co/sKc7QdYtm2 pic.twitter.com/9997vOvxLN
— New York Post (@nypost) September 14, 2022
According to the Post, the former Hollywood titan’s teeth can be pulled while Weinstein is behind bars, but jail dentists will not provide replacements.
Weinstein lawyer Mark Werksman said jail dentists had offered his client only two options, according to the Post: Having the teeth pulled and leaving only gaps in his gum or keeping them to rot in place.
It wasn’t clear from news coverage what specific teeth Weinstein is having problems with. However, Werksman’s arguments indicated they would be easily visible, according to the Post.
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“Werksman claimed barring Weinstein from dental care would be a violation of his constitutional rights, and said a gaping hole in the front of his teeth makes him look ‘ridiculous’ and ‘like a caricature,’” the Post reported.
In August, Werksman told the Post that having the teeth pulled without replacing them could hurt his client when he goes to trial, which is now scheduled for Oct. 10.
“We don’t want him indigent and ill-kept with gaping spaces in his mouth when he goes to trial,” Werksman said. “When he smiles, you can see he has missing teeth.”
On Wednesday, Weinstein said getting a bridge or false teeth after his bad teeth are removed will help him look “presentable” in court, according to the Post.
And, he said, action is necessary.
“I’m in pain every day. I have cavities and I can’t eat because I’m missing teeth,” Weinstein told the court, according to the Post.
Werksman argued that denying Weinstein the more advanced dental care would violate his constitutional rights, according to the Post, because without it he would appear “ridiculous” and “like a caricature.”
Lench disagreed but told Werksman to write up a request, the Post reported.
The former producer was convicted in 2020 of third-degree rape and a criminal sex act in the state of New York for sexual attacks on his attacks on two women, one in 2006 and one in 2013. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
He is currently being held in Los Angeles at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility pending trial on 10 charges that he sexually assaulted five more women from 2004-2013.
In August, the New York State Court of Appeals agreed to hear an appeal of Weinstein’s 2020 conviction, as NBC News reported. He plans to argue that he received an unfair trial because of a “biased judge and juror,” according to CNN.
New York State Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, found that “questions of law are involved which ought to be reviewed,” CNN reported.
