CONVICTED RAPIST AND disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein has tested positive for Covid-19, US media reported last night.

Weinstein is in prison in New York after being sentenced to 23 years in jail for rape and sexual assault.

The fallen film producer’s diagnosis was first reported yesterday evening by celebrity news website TMZ and local paper the Niagara Gazette.

Weinstein’s spokespeople have declined to comment to US media on the subject.

The New York state Department of Corrections did not respond when contacted by AFP for confirmation of the reports.

Sources told TMZ that Weinstein was one of two inmates to test positive at the high-security Wende Correctional Facility northwest of New York City and that he has had no contact with family or his lawyers since his diagnosis. 

Weinstein was transferred last Wednesday to a prison near Buffalo, in the northwest of New York City.

Prior to his transfer, he stayed at Rikers Island prison and a Manhattan hospital, where he was treated for chest pains.

Crowded US prisons have the potential to become hotbeds for coronavirus infections. Last week, guards at Rikers and New York’s Sing Sing prison tested positive for the virus, local media reported.

As of yesterday, the virus has killed 330 people in the US out of more than 27,000 cases, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). 

Weinstein was convicted in February of a criminal sexual act in the first degree and rape in the third degree, while being cleared of predatory sexual assault charges.