Harvey Weinstein has left Rikers Island and has been assigned to Wende Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Alden, New York just east of Buffalo.
The jail houses more than 950 inmates, including Mark David Chapman, who murdered John Lennon.
The Wende Correctional Facility is in the rural town of Alden New York, 33 miles east of Buffalo.
About 950 inmates will be Harvey’s hale and well-met companions and, according to our intel, they are happy to learn that the illustrious former movie mogul will be sharing meals with them, if he gets out of solitary and the coronavirus does not force them all to practice social distancing and eat in their cells.
Weinstein is not expected to stay long at Wende. He is there for evaluation to determine which state prison best meets his “security, medical, mental health and other needs,” according to a Department of Corrections and Community Supervision release.
Harvey has been severely depressed and some fear he could be suicidal.
New York State prisoners with more than six years in their sentences are required to be housed at maximum-security facilities. Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of committing a criminal sex act in the first degree and rape in the third degree.
Following his sentencing last week, Weinstein was immediately cuffed and transferred to Bellevue Hospital after experiencing chest pains. After having a medical procedure to implant a stent, he was immediately transferred to Rikers Island.
Weinstein’s name will be listed alongside some other notables in the facility which has housed:
Jack Abbott – Criminal and author. He committed suicide at Wende in 2002.
Jimmy Burke – Mastermind of the Lufthansa Heist. Burke was imprisoned in Wende until his death in 1996.
Robert Chambers – The “Preppie Killer.” He was imprisoned in Wende in 2008 and later transferred.
Mark David Chapman – The man who murdered former Beatles member John Lennon. Chapman was transferred from Attica Correctional Facility to Wende on May 15, 2012.
David Gilbert – Participant in the 1981 Brink’s robbery and murders. Is currently incarcerated at Wende.
David Sweat – The man who killed a Broome County sheriff’s officer and then led an escape from Clinton Correctional Facility in 2015, was transferred to Wende in April 2018.
Maksim Gelman – The perpetrator of a 28-hour stabbing spree lasting from February 11 to 12, 2011, in New York City, which involved the killing of four people and the wounding of five others.
This gives us a hint that Harvey is among some pretty rugged characters.
However, all is not bleak for Harvey. He may have access to programs such as:
Alcohol and Substance Abuse Treatment Programs
Anger Management Programs
Educational/Vocational Programs
Family Development Programs
Guidance and Counseling Services
Library and Law Library Services
Recreational Programs
Religious Services
Sex Offender Treatment Programs
Volunteer Services and Programs
Coming to Wende marks a return home for Harvey who last lived here in the Buffalo area in the 1970s. Back then, Harvey was well known as a concert promoter. He partnered with a man named Corky Burger and they booked concerts of well known national acts under the name “Harvey and Corky Present”.
They dominated the Buffalo concert market for perhaps a decade before Harvey left for greener pastures in the movie industry.
Corky Burger, Frank Sinatra and Harvey Weinstein in Buffalo in the 1970s. Weinstein, a two-bit punk even then, tried to use his so-called Mafia connections to intimidate and impress rivals and women.
As I understand it, Harvey and Corky broke up their partnership when Harvey, alone with Corky’s wife, tried to sexually assault her. She successfully stopped him and told her husband and the partnership was dissolved.
In Buffalo, Harvey was well known for his fawning association with the Italian Mafia. He liked to flaunt his contacts with them and name drop to try to intimidate rivals and impress women.
Harvey was known to the mafia – then under the control of Stephano Maggadino and his able top lieutenant Sam Pieri – as kind of a classless punk. He was not a man of respect.
Salvatore Sam Pieri [1911-1981] was the soul of good manners. Still, he had a high turnover in friends. One day he would meet a guy and then he would never see him again. Sam considered Weinstein a punk and the Buffalo mob was aware of Harvey’s filthy sex habits which were pronounced and notorious even then.
Harvey liked to brag that he knew Joe ‘The Wolf’ DiCarlo, but Joe never bragged about knowing Harvey.
If Harvey was a man of respect for a time in Hollywood, he is not one now as he shuffles from one prison to another. Presumably, he will head off to California sometime soon – where he’ll be housed in some Los Angeles jail in order to attend his second sex offense criminal trial.
If he is convicted in California, the two states may have to fight over who gets to house old Harvey.
I doubt they will leave the choice up to him.
Harvey’s cell is anything but luxurious, but he will call it home for the time being.
While Frank Report was unable to obtain an actual picture of the cell Harvey will occupy, we are told that this cell is quite similar in size and comfort.
