Legal experts say it's not unheard of for a defendant to use a physical ailment to garner leniency, but the embattled mogul's team maintains his condition is tied to an August car crash and they don't need sympathy to win.
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Harvey Weinstein leaving criminal court after a bail hearing on Dec. 11 in New York City.
Lots of 67-year-old men have back issues — about 80 percent of them, in fact — but when Harvey Weinstein used a walker to enter a Manhattan courtroom for his bail hearing on December 11 it
sparked pervasive speculation that he was faking it.
"This shows everything is going to be under a microscope," former prosecutor Laurie Levenson says of Weinstein's upcoming sexual assault trial. "The very nature of this crime raises questions about whether anything he says or does will be believed."
Weinstein's lawyer, Donna Rotunno, tells
The Hollywood Reporter that his health has been deteriorating since an August car crash. "As the pain got worse and the various different courses of treatment failed to remedy the problem, he began to rely on a cane and a walker," she says. "Friday [December 6], he did not want to appear in court using the assistance of those, for fear of exactly what some media turned it into, so we told him to just use the walker on Wednesday."
Rotunno adds that Weinstein hoped the spinal decompression surgery he had on December 12 would end the discussion — but hours after the procedure
Page Six still published photos of the producer at Target with the headline:
"Harvey Weinstein spotted without his walker: Is he only using one for sympathy?"
His reps tell
THR the photos were taken more than two months ago, and Weinstein on Friday gave the paper an interview from his hospital room in an effort to squash its skepticism.
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