A Maryland man being held in a Virginia prison on rape charges was released over coronavirus concerns, then allegedly murdered his accuser, according to police.
Police tracked down and found Ibrahim Bouaichi, 33, in Prince George’s County, Maryland, on Wednesday. Authorities sought Bouaichi in connection with the death of Karla Dominguez, who had accused Bouaichi of rape and testified against him in October, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2020/08/06/released-jail-height-pandemic-alexandria-rape-suspect-allegedly-killed-his-accuser/">The Washington Post</a>.
When police located Bouaichi, he fled in his car until he crashed. Police moving to arrest him found that he had apparently shot himself. Bouaichi remained in critical condition on Thursday.
Partly on Dominguez’s testimony, Bouaichi was indicted on five felony charges of rape, sodomy, strangulation, abduction, and burglary. Bouaichi was held without bail in an Alexandria prison facility until April 9, when Circuit Court Judge Nolan Dawkins ordered his release on a $25,000 bond.
Bouaichi’s attorneys argued that his bail terms were worth revisiting and he should be released to house arrest because of the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Jails and prisons have been identified as hotspots for the disease because of the facilities’ close quarters. Once the facility is infected, prisoners often don’t have space to socially distance to keep from contracting the virus.
Bouaichi’s attorneys said that continuing to keep him locked up brought increased risk to him, as well as his legal team if they sought to visit him in person. The jail in which Bouaichi was being held had issued rules over so-called “contact visits” between attorneys and inmates, cutting them down to a minimum. Inmates and attorneys moved to meeting via video conference, which Bouaichi’s attorneys complained had “effectively deprived [Bouaichi] of legal counsel.”
Prosecutors argued against releasing Bouaichi since he was indicted for violent crimes and could be a risk to others. Dawkins sided with the defense, and allowed Bouaichi to be released back to his home in Maryland.
On July 29, police responded to reports of gunfire at an apartment building in Alexandria. Police found Dominguez lying dead outside of her apartment. Police obtained a murder warrant for Bouaichi on July 31, and found him in Maryland on Wednesday.
The coronavirus pandemic has <a href="https://dw-site-staging.dailywire.com/news/new-york-city-prosecutors-are-not-happy-with-bill-de-blasios-plan-to-free-high-risk-inmates">confounded</a> authorities and elected officials from the local to national level. Justice system officials have attempted to balance the risk from the coronavirus to inmates with the increased risk to society if certain prisoners are allowed to be set free.
California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is set to release 8,000 inmates from state prisons by the end of August over the coronavirus.
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/newsom-plans-to-release-roughly-8000-inmates-back-into-california-over-coronavirus">The Daily Wire</a> reports:
<blockquote>The CDCR will release prisoners in three stages. The state will begin releasing prisoners with 180 days or fewer left on their sentences who have not been convicted of a violent crime or are registered or required to register as a sex offender.
In the second stage, inmates age 30 and older with less than a year left on their sentences will be eligible for release if they are being held in one of eight prisons with “large populations of high-risk patients.” For the third stage, prisoners deemed at high risk of the coronavirus will be released as long as they are not convicted of a violent crime, required to register as a sex offender, or serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.</blockquote>
At the end of July, California authorities <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/california-releases-convicted-murderer-serving-84-year-sentence-over-pandemic">released</a> a woman who had served about 20 years of an 84-year sentence for murder under a state code “which allows the release of an incarcerated person in the case of an emergency that endangers their life.”
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Police

Police: Rape Suspect Gets Released From Jail Over COVID, Allegedly Murders His Accuser

Coronavirus

COVID-19

Crime

Rape

There is no shortage of studies and data showing women who commit crimes are treated differently than men who commit the same crimes. One of the most glaring differences is seen in the case of raping children.
On July 14, a 19-year-old woman was arrested in Yakima, Washington, after a doorbell surveillance camera caught her raping two boys under the age of 10, according to police. KOMO 4 TV <a href="https://komonews.com/news/local/police-doorbell-video-captures-yakima-woman-raping-2-young-boys">reported</a> that around 4:40 p.m. on that day, an officer responded to a call from a witness who said doorbell video caught footage of a woman performing oral sex on the two boys, who were between the ages of 5 and 9.
When police arrived, the woman ran. An officer caught up to her and knocked her to the ground, where she tried to resist arrest by moving her arms to avoid being handcuffed. The woman was taken into custody and booked into the local jail on “two counts of first-degree child rape and obstructing a police officer,” KOMO reported.
KVEW <a href="https://www.yaktrinews.com/yakima-woman-caught-on-doorbell-camera-raping-two-young-boys-police-say/">reported</a> at the time that the woman is a resident of the apartment complex where the attack took place. The outlet also reported police “will be conducting a forensic interview with them as part of their investigation” and that the woman knew the victims. The outlet reported at the time that it wouldn’t release the woman’s name until it “confirmed that criminal charges have been filed.” It is unlikely a man would have had his name withheld in a similar situation.
Several days later, the outlet <a href="https://www.yaktrinews.com/prosecutors-yakima-woman-charged-with-rape-of-two-boys-recorded-on-doorbell-cam/">reported</a> the woman’s name: Miah Rachelle Lopez.
“Police said the footage showed Lopez performing oral sex acts on two boys who were under the age of 10 outside in the breezeway of the apartment outside the resident’s door. Police said they believe Lopez lives in the complex, and that she was not a stranger to her young victims,” the outlet reported.
It is unlikely Lopez will receive serious jail time for her crime. As I <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/gender-matters-more-for-perpetrators-than-victims-in-child-sex-abuse">wrote years ago</a>, the gender of the perpetrator in cases of child sexual abuse has a serious impact on the sentencing:
<blockquote>A 32-year-old man was found guilty of sexually abusing a young girl for years, starting when she was just 6 years old. That man faced <a href="http://ktla.com/2015/08/25/victorville-man-convicted-on-29-counts-of-child-sex-assault-faces-366-years-to-life-in-prison/">366 years to life in prison</a>. Meanwhile, a 25-year-old woman pleaded guilty to attempted rape of young boys <a href="http://www.mailtribune.com/article/20150831/NEWS/150839937">at a trailer park</a> in California. The female abuser in that case had previously been indicted on several other charges, including first-degree rape. She had pleaded guilty to the lesser charges as part of a plea agreement, and received five years&#8217; probation.</blockquote>
Another female abuser, former Baltimore Ravens cheerleader Molly Shattuck, was sentenced to 48 weekends at a work detention facility – spread out over two years – after she statutory raped a 15-year-old boy who was a friend of her son.
Lopez will probably face a similar punishment – probation or possibly a short prison sentence. Meanwhile, the young boys she victimized may be traumatized and ignored simply because of their gender.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Unhappy child

Woman Caught On Camera Raping Two Young Boys, Already Received Special Treatment

Children

Gender

Sexual Abuse

A male Coker University student is suing after he was arrested and temporarily suspended from the school after what he says was a false accusation of sexual assault.
The student, Cesar Lopez, filed a lawsuit against the city of Hartsville, South Carolina, the Hartsville police department, and three officers back on April 28. The next day, he filed a lawsuit against the university and multiple individuals. The case was dismissed by Lopez’s attorneys who then filed an amended complaint at the end of June, SC Now <a href="https://www.scnow.com/news/local/former-student-sues-coker-university-hartsville-over-alleged-false-rape-accusation/article_79b78cad-8b59-538e-bace-875528e1c756.amp.html?__twitter_impression=true">reported</a>.
The lawsuit stems from an incident between Lopez and a female student named Lauren Pearson. The two students had a sexual encounter around 4:30 a.m. on April 29, 2018, in a residence hall bathroom. The amended complaint, according to SC Now, says Pearson left the encounter to laugh and joke with her friends. She claimed to police that she ran from the bathroom and quickly left the residence hall.
Pearson told two law enforcement officials at 6:40 a.m. that she had been raped. Lopez’s lawsuit alleges inconsistencies in Pearson’s claim. She allegedly told an officer that she ran from the bathroom before Lopez. The complaint alleges Pearson told her friends that Lopez left first.
Lopez says he was then warrantlessly arrested by Hartsville police – before the case was even assigned to a detective or any investigation took place. Lopez alleges a warrant for his arrest was issued later that morning and charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct and kidnapping.
“First-degree criminal sexual conduct is a felony. Conviction of the crime carries a penalty of not more than 30 years in prison. Kidnapping is also a felony. It also carries a penalty of not more than 30 years in prison if a person is convicted of the crime,” SC Now reported.
Lopez says in his lawsuit that he was kicked off the Coker soccer team and withdrawn from the university. He would have to re-apply to the university even if the charges were dismissed.
The former Coker student also said in his complaint against the city that Pearson didn’t respond to police requests for two days before taking a polygraph test on May 2. On May 4, she was arrested and charged with filing a false police report.
Lopez posted a $100,000 bond on May 2 to get out of jail. His family hired an attorney who discovered witnesses saw Lopez and Pearson “making out” the night of the alleged rape. The attorney also discovered Pearson had accused two others of sexual assault the previous semester.
As SC Now reported, Pearson was allegedly dating a student referred to only as A.E. in the fall of 2017. A.E. broke up with her and Pearson began seeing another student. She would later tell A.E. that the other student raped her. A.E. allegedly confronted the other man and discovered Pearson had lied. She later allegedly sent a message to A.E. admitting she lied. She and A.E. got back together, but when he ended their relationship a second time, she accused him of raping her.
A.E., according to Lopez’s amended complaint, was given a no-contact order and his claims of a false accusation were not investigated by Coker, even though the university has a policy to investigate such claims.
Lopez alleges he informed a police officer about Pearson’s previous false accusations but that they were ignored prior to the student’s arrest. Pearson was arrested for filing a false report but was released on a $10,000 surety bond, SC Now reported.
“Filing a false police report accusing someone else of a felony is a felony and carries a penalty of not more than five years in prison and not more than a $1,000 fine, or both,” the outlet reported.
Lope was reinstated to Coker but is still suing, alleging his reinstatement took place two days after the university learned the allegations were false. He was subsequently found not responsible in a university Title IX hearing a week later and returned to the soccer team.
Coker sought to dismiss the lawsuit in part because it provided Lopez additional time to study for his final exams after he was released from jail.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Woman in handcuffs

She Claimed He Raped Her And He Was Arrested. She Was Soon Charged With Filing A False Police Report.

false accusations

Lawsuit

Two black teenagers were jailed for nearly one year in Richland County, South Carolina after being charged with rape. They remained in prison even after DNA evidence proved they didn’t commit the crime and months after another man was charged with the crime.
The rape occurred on August 5, 2015. A woman called police saying her neighbor appeared at her home naked, terrified, and bleeding, FITSNews <a href="https://www.fitsnews.com/2020/07/06/two-black-sc-teens-jailed-for-almost-a-year-after-rape-they-didnt-commit-lawsuit-says/">reported</a>, based on court documents. The victim said she was sleeping on her couch and woke up to find two men in her apartment. She couldn’t see them clearly, but said they raped her and stole two money orders from her.
She was interviewed by police at the hospital where lead investigator Joe Clarke took notes, writing the names “Kewon” and “Shakim.” As FITSNews reported, the investigation moved quick, finding a 16-year-old named Kewon English who lived in the neighborhood and happened to be with the victim’s son the night before the attack. An 18-year-old named Earl Powell was also with English that night. English was approached by police on August 5.
“The first thing they said to me was that I needed to hand over the money orders or they were taking me to jail,” English’s affidavit as part of his lawsuit stated. He said the officers spoke to him for about 10-15 minutes about the rape before telling him to come with them to the police station. “I asked if my mom could come with me, and they said no, because I was under arrest,” English said in his affidavit.
He said he was taken to the police station and handcuffed to a bench.
“I asked to call my mom on the phone and they said no,” English said in his affidavit. “I asked for an attorney, and asked the officers how I would go about getting an attorney, and they ignored me.”
English said in his affidavit that he was questioned for two hours without a break or even a drink of water and was denied a chance to go home. He said officer Clarke told him to write down what happened during the rape, even though English kept saying he didn’t know anything about it and hadn’t been part of the crime. English’s affidavit said Clarke then wrote out a statement and said the teen wouldn’t be able to go home until he signed it.
English signed the document because he wanted to go home and was charged with first-degree criminal sexual assault and first-degree burglary. He said he didn’t even know what the statement said until he saw a copy during the criminal case against him.
As FITSNews reported, Powell’s arrest was similar.
Both men provided DNA samples, and once they had defense attorneys, began requesting results.
“Without DNA test results, prosecutors in the cases added on two additional charges of kidnapping and armed robbery in November 2015,” FITSNews reported. “In April 2016 DNA test results came back in the case, but they matched another person named Marquise Randolph. Randolph was also charged in the case, at the same time English and Powell were still sitting behind bars in the same crime.”
English’s attorney said he was not told the results of the DNA results when they were first completed.
“Even more telling,” the outlet reported, “detectives compared both English and Powell’s DNA with the DNA found at the scene. Neither of them left fingerprints, blood, semen, fibers, hair, or any DNA on scene, according to court records.”
Even though Randolph was charged in April 2016, neither English nor Powell were released at that time. English was released on June 28 and forced to wear an ankle monitor. Powell wasn’t released from prison until he posted bond in September 2016. The charges against both teens were dropped in December 2016.
They’re now suing Sheriff Leon Lott and the Richland County Sheriff’s Department for “wrongful arrest / false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, negligence and gross negligence in the hiring supervision and detention of employees,” FITSNews reported.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Prison

They Were Accused Of Rape And Jailed For One Year Even Though DNA Proved Their Innocence. They’re Now Suing.

For years I have written about the impossible situation schools are in when it comes to allegations of sexual assault. Schools have skewed their processes so far toward believing all accusers that wrongly accused students have had to sue in order to get their lives back, leading to the Trump administration issuing new guidelines requiring schools to require basic due process in their adjudications.
The problem for schools has always been that if they find an accused student guilty, and that student sues, few media outlets will cover the lawsuit. If an accuser, however, claims a school let her “rapist” walk free, she will likely receive national attention. The most famous example of this was Emma Sulkowicz, known as “Mattress Girl,” who claimed Columbia University didn’t punish the man she said rapist and was plastered all over the media and put on the cover of media, hailed as a hero. In reality, the school found the man she accused “not responsible” because the evidence was against her.
Accusers have used this threat to get schools to abandon truth, fairness, and the due process in order to find accused students responsible – to avoid bad publicity. Yet now, at Coastal Carolina University, a woman publicly accusing the university of mishandling her rape allegations has prompted the school to hold a question and answer session with interested parties to explain its adjudication process.
The woman claimed the school found her “rapist” didn’t violate Title IX even though he admitted to “not having verbal consent.” This could obviously be leaving out information, as “verbal consent” is not required if there is nonverbal consent. Perhaps the school determined nonverbal consent was given.
&#8220;Recently, conversations have taken place on social media channels regarding individual cases of alleged sexual misconduct and the outcomes of those cases in the university’s student conduct process. The university administration takes these comments very seriously, and we understand how circumstances of this nature can cause real concern,&#8221; the school said in <a href="https://www.coastal.edu/conduct/universitystatement/">a statement</a>.
CCU is no stranger to controversy surrounding its definition of consent. In 2015, I <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ever-had-drunk-sex-thats-rape-according-to-this-university">reported</a> on a poster that was seen hanging at the university that said: “Jake was drunk. Josie was drunk. Jake and Josie hooked up. Josie could NOT consent.”
At the bottom, the poster said: A woman who is intoxicated cannot give her legal consent for sex, so proceeding under these circumstances is a crime.”
The sex-discrimination should be obvious: If both students were drunk, why is only the man responsible?
At this time, CCU has made no indication that it will re-evaluate the specific case mentioned on social media, but the Q&amp;A itself still shows the school’s bias. It is hard to imagine that a male accused student who was found responsible would be able to prompt the school into holding such a session if he believed he was wrongly accused.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Sad woman

Her School Didn’t Find The Man She Accused Responsible For Sexual Assault, So She Took To Social Media To Shame The School

Education

Title IX

Between 1974 and 1986, a series of murders, rapes, and burglaries terrorized California. In 12 years, the man known in different parts of the state as the East Area Rapist, the Original Night Stalker, and the Visalia Ransacker committed at least 13 murders and more than 50 rapes and 100 burglaries.
Like so many famous serial killers, the Golden State Killer taunted victims and police by making creepy phone calls and writing letters.
The serial killer and rapist would break into suburban couples’ homes at night, tie up the man and stack plates on his back, and then say he would kill both of them if he heard the dishes fall while he raped the wife.
On April 24, 2018, U.S. Navy veteran and former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was charged with crimes associated with the Golden State Killer – more than 30 years after the crime sprees ended. DNA linked DeAngelo with the murders and rapes. He was charged with eight counts of first-degree murder and charges relating to kidnapping and abduction attempts. He couldn’t be charged for the numerous rapes due to the statute of limitations at the time.
The Associated Press has now <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/06/16/golden-state-killer-suspect-expected-to-plead-guilty/">reported</a> that DeAngelo is expected to plead guilty in exchange for a plea deal that allows him to avoid the death penalty. He is expected to plead guilty on June 29 and be sentenced once the surviving victims and relatives of his murder victims have a chance to confront him in court.
Ron Harrington, whose younger brother and sister-in-law were murdered by DeAngelo in August 1980, said they would accept either punishment.
“We are so totally supportive of the death penalty and yet we are totally supportive of this decision to let the Golden State Killer plead to life without possibility of parole,” Harrington said.
“Almost 40 years have passed and literally some of the victims have passed away, there are foundational issues from an evidentiary standpoint,” he added. “You’ve got victims who have now passed away, how are they going to testify?”
The AP reported that “District attorneys in six counties that had been seeking the death penalty issued a joint statement that did not address that issue, but noted the scope of crimes that started more than four decades ago and involved dozens of victims across 11 counties over more than a decade.”
“Victims of a crime are entitled to finality in their criminal cases, as well as the expectation that the person convicted of committing the crime will be punished,” the DAs wrote in their statement, adding that they “are working closely with the victims in this case to ensure their statements are considered by the Court prior to sentencing.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Joseph DeAngelo Jr

The ‘Golden State Killer’ Terrorized California in The 1970s And 80s. The Man Accused Of The Crimes Is Expected To Plead Guilty.

California

Murder

Nearly 100 years ago, Max Mason was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his role in the alleged rape of a white woman in Minnesota. Just three days before the 100-year anniversary of his conviction and the infamous Duluth lynchings that came with the case, Mason was posthumously pardoned.
CBS <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/max-mason-pardon-posthumous-duluth-lynchings-1920/">reported</a> that in 1920, Mason was in Duluth as part of a traveling circus. He and three other black men were accused of raping a 19-year-old white woman that year. The other three men, Isaac McGhie, Elmer Jackson, and Elias Clayton, were all lynched. Mason was the only one sentenced to prison, even though a doctor found no evidence that the white woman was raped.
More from CBS:
<blockquote>Mason was denied parole six times between 1922 and 1925, according to the <a href="https://mn.gov/doc/assets/Mason%2C%20Max%20-%20Spring%202020%20SUMMARY%20with%20Docs_Redacted_tcm1089-435330.pdf">pardon application.</a> He was released from prison in 1925 on the condition that he not return to Minnesota for the next 16 years. A district attorney several years later questioned the evidence against Mason and said he likely would not have been convicted if he were white.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is on the Board of Pardons, tweeted Thursday that &#8220;justice delayed is justice denied. But 100 years later, justice can still be done.&#8221;
Ellison, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minnesota Chief Justice Lorie Gildea all voted to pardon Mason. Walz said there was a &#8220;direct line&#8221; between Mason&#8217;s case and the <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/george-floyd-funeral-service/">murder of George Floyd.</a>
&#8220;This is 100 years overdue,&#8221; Walz said. &#8220;By not addressing this, it continued the systemic racism.&#8221;</blockquote>
Mason’s case was supposed to be heard by the Board of Pardons six months ago, Walz added, “not knowing that we would see the murder of George Floyd in the meantime.&#8221;
&#8220;I don&#8217;t believe anything happens by chance,&#8221; Walz said, according to CBS. &#8220;I believe we were given this opportunity.&#8221;
It is unclear why the board didn’t hear Mason’s case six months ago.
Mike Tusken, the grand-nephew of Irene Tusken, who made the false rape claim against the men, supported Mason’s pardon, saying he was not aware of his family’s connection to the case until his mother explained it to him in 2000 when his aunt died.
“Tusken said he believed the secrecy was because of his family&#8217;s shame and a desire to forget about the injustice,” CBS reported. “Tusken said his aunt died in a nursing home after suffering a stroke, incapable of speech and ‘unable to atone’ for her actions.”
Tusken, who is now the chief of police in Duluth, called the case against Mason and the other men an “abomination” and a “disgrace to the police profession.”
Tusken said Mason was arrested “wholly on speculation, conjecture and intimidation&#8221; and because the town was desperate “to make an arrest and hold someone, anyone accountable, regardless of the facts and evidence in the case.&#8221;
&#8220;Justice was denied to Mr. Mason during his lifetime, but this board has an opportunity to right this wrong today,&#8221; Tusken added, according to CBS.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Man in prison

A Black Man Was Imprisoned After A White Woman’s False Rape Accusation. He Was Just Posthumously Pardoned.

wrongful conviction

Nearly a year after he was arrested at an Atlanta airport and charged with four counts of second-degree assault and one count each of battery, burglary, and strangulation all resulting from an alleged incident that occurred one year prior to his arrest, Toronto special constable Jordan Anthony Doswell is freed.
The man was being prosecuted by West Virginia officials, who last Thursday dropped the charges against the 34-year-old Canadian, saying the state “no longer desires to prosecute” him, <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/crime--law/charges-dropped-against-toronto-special-constable-arrested-atlanta-airport/hBv6sd8DPYgrqq6JXRU4LM/">reported</a> the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Doswell’s attorney, Benjamin Freeman, told the outlet that the charges were dropped because the accuser’s story, which changed repeatedly, didn’t line up with the evidence.
“After reviewing the case against Mr. Doswell we determined that the physical evidence did not match the accuser’s statements to police and to her doctors and therapists,” Freeman said.
Freeman explained to the AJC that the woman changed her accusation while speaking with police.
“Originally, the accuser told police that she had no idea who attacked her,” he said. “Then her story changed. First, this was not consensual sex that went too far; this was not date rape.”
She also, Freeman said, refused to answer “basic questions about what happened” while speaking with police.
The AJC previously <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/crime--law/toronto-police-officer-wanted-rape-charge-caught-atlanta-airport/PPOeUIE37zshsUxLKo1IwL/">reported</a> the woman claimed a man she didn’t know broke into her home and raped her.
Freeman added that in the end, police found online chat records between the accuser (who has not been named because even though she appears to have lied, media outlets give her anonymity simply for claiming to be a victim and she has not been arrested yet) and Doswell that proved they had been speaking for weeks on an online dating app.
Doswell is originally from Toronto, but the woman he met was in West Virginia, where their encounter took place. The AJC explained Doswell’s job as a special constable:
<blockquote>Toronto Community Housing spokesman Bruce Malloch previously said Doswell was employed by the housing agency as a special constable in the community safety unit. Special constables are generally auxiliary officers tasked with security or peacekeeping duties, but they can have the powers of police officers in certain jurisdictions. The current status of his employment is not clear.</blockquote>
Doswell <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/crime--law/toronto-police-officer-wanted-rape-charge-caught-atlanta-airport/PPOeUIE37zshsUxLKo1IwL/">had been arrested</a> at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta in June 2019 after being labeled a fugitive from justice due to the incident in West Virginia. He was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Now Doswell is trapped in Atlanta due to a coronavirus shelter-in-place order, and can’t return to Toronto until that order is lifted.
It is so far unclear whether the woman will be charged with filing a false police report. While she enjoys anonymity for claiming to be a victim, Doswell’s name was plastered across news reports as an alleged rapist, and based on the woman’s claim and the way articles were written, he seemed guilty. The Daily Wire is using his name so that people who search for him will learn the charges were dropped because the accuser’s story didn’t add up.

Sad Man

She Accused Him Of Sexual Assault And He Was Arrested. Text Messages And Inconsistencies Showed He Was Innocent.

Sexual Assault

Two years ago, a woman named Halina Kuta told Las Vegas police that casino mogul Steve Wynn raped her in the early 1970s and that she was the real mother of Wynn’s daughter, whom she claimed to have birthed in a gas station restroom.
Despite the implausibility of Kuta’s allegations – she also claimed to have been a model for Pablo Picasso’s painting “Le Reve,” which was painted more than 10 years before Kuta was born – the media ran with the allegations against Wynn because of the #MeToo movement’s hysteria over powerful men getting accused of sexual misconduct. Wynn sued Kuta for defamation and has now won.
This week, however, The Associated Press <a href="https://mynorthwest.com/1759721/judge-woman-defamed-steve-wynn-with-police-report-of-rape/">reported</a> that Clark County District Court Judge Ronald Israel awarded Wynn the $1 in damages that Wynn sought from Kuta, ruling that the woman did, in fact, defame the former casino mogul, who resigned in February 2018 as chairman and chief executive of Wynn Resorts.
“I find that Mr. Wynn’s testimony is credible and Ms. Kuta’s testimony lacks veracity in numerous areas,” Israel ruled, adding that Kuta “knowingly made a false report” to the Las Vegas police.
“This was intentional,” Israel added, “although this story seems to be totally fanciful.”
Kuta represented herself during the juryless trial for the case.
The AP used a public records request in February 2018 to obtain a redacted police report of Kuta’s allegations. The outlet then reported about the allegations against Wynn, leaving out information regarding Kuta’s more egregious claims.
“Israel ruled in August 2018 the AP report qualified as fair reporting because it relied on an official police record. He also invoked protection for the news agency under a Nevada state law known as anti-SLAPP or ‘strategic lawsuit against public participation.’ The ruling allows AP to recover legal fees in the case,” the AP reported. “Wynn has appealed that ruling to the Nevada Supreme Court, which has scheduled oral arguments April 1 in Las Vegas.”
As to how absurd Kuta’s claims were, the AP explained that Israel denied her a DNA test from Wynn’s daughter, Kevyn, because a birth certificate showed her birth date being in 1967, years before Kuta said Wynn allegedly raped her in 1973 or 1974. Also, Picasso painted “Le Reve” in 1932. Kuta was born more than a decade later.
“You’d have to be delusional not to understand that they were lies and fabrications of the worst order,” Wynn said during his testimony. “What I’m asking for is to have this miserable fiction finally called for what it is, a miserable fiction.”
“I would say that I have never set eyes on Ms. Kuta before today, but I can’t see her,” he added, referencing his diagnosis of retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease, 50 years ago.
As to why Kuta made the allegations, she acknowledged to Wynn’s attorney Tamara Peterson that she demanded $150 million from the casino mogul to drop her claims. Kuta was also able to jump on the #MeToo bandwagon in 2018, getting instant victim status simply because she made an allegation against a powerful man.

Steve Wynn

A Woman Who Accused Former Casino Mogul Steve Wynn Of Rape Was Found To Have Defamed Him

MeToo

If you’re going to lie about being sexually assaulted at work, it’s probably a good idea not to Google how to do it before you make the claim.
On February 5, police responded to a call from the Excalibur Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas saying a room was on fire. After they arrived, police learned that a hotel worker, Aviaon Lee, may have been sexually assaulted just before the fire was set, as witnesses said they found her curled up in the hotel hallway bound with duct tape, KVVU <a href="https://www.fox5vegas.com/news/excalibur-arson-suspect-searched-for-workers-compensation-weeks-before-sex/article_75b950a8-5e56-11ea-b217-2f46f086b014.html">reported</a>.
Lee told police she had been cleaning a room when a man sexually assaulted her after taping her eyes shut. She claimed the man wore a ski mask and set the bed on fire after he assaulted her.
Lee gave police her phone as part of their investigation, and police quickly discovered that between January 11 and February 2, Lee had searched the Internet for information regarding rape and workman’s compensation. KVVU reported the searches included: &#8220;can you sue hotel job for sexual assault,&#8221; &#8220;how much can you sue a company for injury&#8221; and &#8220;how can you tell if someone been raped.&#8221;
Police then asked Lee about the searches and she claimed they were about something that had happened to her mother-in-law years earlier. She claimed her mother-in-law had been assaulted while working as a housekeeper. Later, Lee admitted she had lied about being sexually assaulted and that she set the fire to try and profit from her allegations.
KVVU reported that the fire set by Lee resulted in an estimated $594,646 in damage.
“Lee is facing felony and gross misdemeanor charges including: arson, burglary with a deadly weapon, destroying property valued $5,000 or greater, obstructing the extinguishment of a fire, disregard for the safety of persons or property and false report of crime,” the outlet reported. “Lee was released Feb. 20 on mid-level monitoring after bond was posted, according to court records.”
KSNV <a href="https://news3lv.com/news/local/arrest-warrant-excalibur-employee-admitted-to-fabricating-sex-assault-claim">reported</a> that Lee was arrested on February 19 for allegedly lying about the sexual assault and setting the fire.
Initially, the outlet reported, Lee’s allegations made the assault seem “very personal and well planned,” leading police to suspect the attacker knew Lee and may have been responsible for other assaults.
After Lee confessed to making the whole thing up, police also discovered that Lee “had a history of making worker&#8217;s compensation claims while working at the Excalibur, with a dozen reports dating to as far back as 2013,” KSNV reported.
Lee’s allegations and the extent to which she went to fabricate her crimes calls to mind infamous false accuser Tawana Brawley, who went so far as to smear feces on herself, write racial slurs on her body, and hide inside a trash bag in order to claim several powerful white men raped and attacked her. With Brawley, she received national attention thanks to people like Al Sharpton, who used her accusations as a way to enrich themselves and become famous.
In the end, the falsely accused men sued, yet Brawley has only paid a fraction of the money she owes them and Sharpton’s friends paid off his debts.

Aviaon Lee

She Claimed She Was Bound And Raped In A Hotel Room. Internet Searches Proved She Lied.

In what appears to be a rare sentencing, a female teacher was actually jailed for a serious length of time after raping underage teen boys.
Kathryn Houghtaling, 27, was a special education teacher at Rochester High School in Rochester Hills, Michigan, when she had sex with two male students, aged 16 and 17, in a car. She also provided Xanax to one of the boys, The Detroit News <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/oakland-county/2020/03/03/ex-rochester-high-teacher-sentenced-prison-sex-students/4938777002/">reported</a>. Houghtaling eventually pleaded no contest to six charges of third-degree criminal sexual conduct with the boys and an additional charge of provided a controlled substance to one of her victims.
“I’ve learned to take full responsibility for my actions and seek help for those that I can’t control,” Houghtaling said through tears in Oakland County Circuit Court, the News reported. “The concept of going to prison is a scary one …”
She added that she regretted what she had done to students and that her actions destroyed her career and hurt her marriage, the outlet reported.
Houghtaling was sentenced to between 51 months and 180 months in prison for her crimes, or a little over four years to a potential 15 years behind bars. After sentencing, Judge Rae Lee Chabot said there was nothing that could have prevented her to sentence Houghtaling to less time in prison.
“It’s difficult for me to judge someone else’s behavior in this way but the law is very clear — and it applies to men and women the same,” Chabot said.
The Metro <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/03/control-teacher-jailed-raping-boy-car-students-watched-12343702/">reported</a> that Houghtaling’s crimes were discovered after a “parent found a video of her partying with students.” It was then discovered that Houghtaling had sexually abused one of her victims in his own home a month earlier. Houghtaling, a special education teacher, victimized one boy with a reading impairment.
The outlet reported that Houghtaling “groomed her victims by drinking and smoking marijuana after school, and also plied one of the boys with Xanax.”
Nearly five years ago I <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/gender-matters-more-for-perpetrators-than-victims-in-child-sex-abuse">wrote</a> about the legal bias that allows female rapists off the hook for their crimes. Women who abuse teens and children receive little to no jail time compared to men who abuse children. Houghtaling’s four-to-10-year sentence is far more than most women get in these situations.
For example, when former Baltimore Ravens cheerleader Molly Shattuck performed oral sex on a 15-year-old boy who was a friend of her own son, she received 48 weekends at a work detention facility. Those weekends were spread out over two years. Shawna Marie Nerby received just five years’ probation after she pleaded guilty to attempting to rape young boys in a trailer park. She previously had been indicted on other charges, including first-degree rape.
Meanwhile, men who abuse children receive sentences most in society would find more appropriate for this type of crime – hundreds of years in prison. For example Luis Gilbert Sanchez was sentenced to 366 years to life in prison for abusing a young girl for years. He started abusing his victim when she was just 6 years old. Another man, Dean Lee Benner, was sentenced to life in prison plus 215 years for abusing a young boy.
Houghtaling’s sentence is nowhere near what a man would receive for the same crime, but at least she wasn’t let go with a slap on the wrist.

Teenage Boy

Female Teacher Actually Jailed For Raping Teen Boys

Over the past six months, celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey, Beyoncé, Dr. Phil, and Rihanna rallied behind death row inmate and convicted rapist and murderer Rodney Reed, claiming the 52-year-old black man was wrongly convicted, at least in part due to racial bias.
Despite the onslaught of celebrity advocacy, last week, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal from the death row inmate.
Reed was convicted of the 1996 rape and murder of 19-year-old Stacy Stites due in large part to DNA evidence. When Reed was convicted, it was determined Stites was strangled to death by her own belt while on her way to work at a HEB grocery store in Bastrop, Texas, in April 1996. Evidence determined that Stites was both vaginally and anally raped while being strangled to death. DNA from semen found in the teen’s vagina and anus matched that of Reed’s.
However, Reed has claimed that he did not murder Stites, but was having a secret consensual sexual affair with the teen. When her fiancé Jimmy Fennell, a white police officer, found out, he killed Stites, Reed’s defense attorneys theorized.
Celebrities were quick to advocate for Reed despite the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/celebrities-push-to-save-death-row-inmate-rodney-reed-but-what-does-the-evidence-say">overwhelming evidence</a> against the convict.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/celebrities-push-to-save-death-row-inmate-rodney-reed-but-what-does-the-evidence-say">Celebrities Push To Save Death Row Inmate Rodney Reed. But What Does The Evidence Say?</a>
Singer Rihanna, for example, posted a petition asking for the public to reject the &#8220;government killing an innocent man.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
One Click!!! SIGN this petition if you don’t believe the Government should kill an innocent man!!! <a href="https://twitter.com/GovAbbott?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GovAbbott</a> <a href="https://t.co/L3xrvn7MJO">https://t.co/L3xrvn7MJO</a>
&mdash; Rihanna (@rihanna) <a href="https://twitter.com/rihanna/status/1191256275818029056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 4, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Today, I had the honor of meeting <a class=" xil3i" href="https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/rodneyreed/">#RodneyReed</a> in person and the privilege of sitting with him when he got the news that the highest court in Texas had issued a stay of execution and remanded the case back to the trial court for further consideration,&#8221; Kardashian posted via Instagram on November 15.
Reed was set for execution on November 20, but the order was temporarily stayed.
&#8220;Words cannot describe the relief and hope that swept over the room in that moment. That hope had been building over the last few weeks around Rodney’s case,&#8221; Kardashian continued. &#8220;We have seen Democrats and Republicans come together. We have seen grassroots activists and lawmakers link arms. We have heard people all around the globe speak up. And all because of a deep belief that every man or woman accused of a crime &#8211; especially one punishable by death &#8211; deserves the chance to have all available evidence considered.&#8221;
&#8220;So grateful for the commitment and passion of everyone who voiced their support, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles for their recommendation to issue a 120 day reprieve, and the courts for issuing a stay!&#8221; she closed the post.
<blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/B45-_kKA3ux/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="12" style=" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:500px; min-width:326px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);">
<div style="padding:16px;"> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B45-_kKA3ux/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" background:#FFFFFF; line-height:0; padding:0 0; text-align:center; text-decoration:none; width:100%;" target="_blank"> 
<div style=" display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;">
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;">
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div>
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div>
<div style="display:block; height:50px; margin:0 auto 12px; width:50px;"><svg width="50px" height="50px" viewBox="0 0 60 60" version="1.1" xmlns="https://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><g stroke="none" stroke-width="1" fill="none" fill-rule="evenodd"><g transform="translate(-511.000000, -20.000000)" fill="#000000"><g><path d="M556.869,30.41 C554.814,30.41 553.148,32.076 553.148,34.131 C553.148,36.186 554.814,37.852 556.869,37.852 C558.924,37.852 560.59,36.186 560.59,34.131 C560.59,32.076 558.924,30.41 556.869,30.41 M541,60.657 C535.114,60.657 530.342,55.887 530.342,50 C530.342,44.114 535.114,39.342 541,39.342 C546.887,39.342 551.658,44.114 551.658,50 C551.658,55.887 546.887,60.657 541,60.657 M541,33.886 C532.1,33.886 524.886,41.1 524.886,50 C524.886,58.899 532.1,66.113 541,66.113 C549.9,66.113 557.115,58.899 557.115,50 C557.115,41.1 549.9,33.886 541,33.886 M565.378,62.101 C565.244,65.022 564.756,66.606 564.346,67.663 C563.803,69.06 563.154,70.057 562.106,71.106 C561.058,72.155 560.06,72.803 558.662,73.347 C557.607,73.757 556.021,74.244 553.102,74.378 C549.944,74.521 548.997,74.552 541,74.552 C533.003,74.552 532.056,74.521 528.898,74.378 C525.979,74.244 524.393,73.757 523.338,73.347 C521.94,72.803 520.942,72.155 519.894,71.106 C518.846,70.057 518.197,69.06 517.654,67.663 C517.244,66.606 516.755,65.022 516.623,62.101 C516.479,58.943 516.448,57.996 516.448,50 C516.448,42.003 516.479,41.056 516.623,37.899 C516.755,34.978 517.244,33.391 517.654,32.338 C518.197,30.938 518.846,29.942 519.894,28.894 C520.942,27.846 521.94,27.196 523.338,26.654 C524.393,26.244 525.979,25.756 528.898,25.623 C532.057,25.479 533.004,25.448 541,25.448 C548.997,25.448 549.943,25.479 553.102,25.623 C556.021,25.756 557.607,26.244 558.662,26.654 C560.06,27.196 561.058,27.846 562.106,28.894 C563.154,29.942 563.803,30.938 564.346,32.338 C564.756,33.391 565.244,34.978 565.378,37.899 C565.522,41.056 565.552,42.003 565.552,50 C565.552,57.996 565.522,58.943 565.378,62.101 M570.82,37.631 C570.674,34.438 570.167,32.258 569.425,30.349 C568.659,28.377 567.633,26.702 565.965,25.035 C564.297,23.368 562.623,22.342 560.652,21.575 C558.743,20.834 556.562,20.326 553.369,20.18 C550.169,20.033 549.148,20 541,20 C532.853,20 531.831,20.033 528.631,20.18 C525.438,20.326 523.257,20.834 521.349,21.575 C519.376,22.342 517.703,23.368 516.035,25.035 C514.368,26.702 513.342,28.377 512.574,30.349 C511.834,32.258 511.326,34.438 511.181,37.631 C511.035,40.831 511,41.851 511,50 C511,58.147 511.035,59.17 511.181,62.369 C511.326,65.562 511.834,67.743 512.574,69.651 C513.342,71.625 514.368,73.296 516.035,74.965 C517.703,76.634 519.376,77.658 521.349,78.425 C523.257,79.167 525.438,79.673 528.631,79.82 C531.831,79.965 532.853,80.001 541,80.001 C549.148,80.001 550.169,79.965 553.369,79.82 C556.562,79.673 558.743,79.167 560.652,78.425 C562.623,77.658 564.297,76.634 565.965,74.965 C567.633,73.296 568.659,71.625 569.425,69.651 C570.167,67.743 570.674,65.562 570.82,62.369 C570.966,59.17 571,58.147 571,50 C571,41.851 570.966,40.831 570.82,37.631"></path></g></g></g></svg></div>
<div style="padding-top: 8px;">
<div style=" color:#3897f0; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:550; line-height:18px;"> View this post on Instagram</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;">
<div>
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"></div>
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 8px;">
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"></div>
<div style=" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg)"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: auto;">
<div style=" width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"></div>
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"></div>
<div style=" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"></div>
</div>
</div>
</a> 
 <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B45-_kKA3ux/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">Today, I had the honor of meeting #RodneyReed in person and the privilege of sitting with him when he got the news that the highest court in Texas had issued a stay of execution and remanded the case back to the trial court for further consideration. Words cannot describe the relief and hope that swept over the room in that moment. That hope had been building over the last few weeks around Rodney’s case. We have seen Democrats and Republicans come together. We have seen grassroots activists and lawmakers link arms. We have heard people all around the globe speak up. And all because of a deep belief that every man or woman accused of a crime &#8211; especially one punishable by death &#8211; deserves the chance to have all available evidence considered. So grateful for the commitment and passion of everyone who voiced their support, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles for their recommendation to issue a 120 day reprieve, and the courts for issuing a stay!</a>
<p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A post shared by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/kimkardashian/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px;" target="_blank"> Kim Kardashian West</a> (@kimkardashian) on <time style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;" datetime="2019-11-16T00:21:28+00:00">Nov 15, 2019 at 4:21pm PST</time>
</div>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script>
While the appeal was denied, left-wing Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in a separate writing that &#8220;Reed has &#8216;presented a substantial body of evidence&#8217; that she said &#8216;if true&#8217; casts doubt on the &#8216;veracity of scientific validity of the evidence,'&#8221; <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/24/politics/supreme-court-death-row-case-rodney-reed/index.html">CNN</a> reported.
Justice Sotomayor noted the Supreme Court rejecting the appeal should not &#8220;close the door&#8221; on future review of the case, citing lower courts.
&#8220;I remain hopeful that available state processes will take care to ensure full and fair consideration of Reed&#8217;s innocence,&#8221; said the justice.

Beyonce And Rihanna

Kim Kardashian, Beyoncé, Oprah Advocated For Death Row Rapist And Murderer. Supreme Court: NOPE.

Beyonce

Kim Kardashian

Oprah Winfrey

After only one season, Fox has reportedly canceled the show &#8220;Almost Family.&#8221; The news comes just hours after its lead actor, Timothy Hutton, was accused by a former Canadian model of raping her back in 1983, when she was just 14 years old — an accusation Hutton &#8220;completely and unequivocally&#8221; denies.
In a report published by <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kateaurthur/oscar-winning-actor-timothy-hutton-raped-me-when-i-was-14">BuzzFeed News</a> on Monday, former model Sera Johnston presented what BuzzFeed describes as &#8220;her truth,&#8221; but what Hutton&#8217;s representatives say is all about the money.
Johnston, who filed a criminal complaint with the Vancouver Police Department about the over three-decades-old incident last year, told the outlet that in Vancouver in 1983, she and two of her fellow junior high girlfriends met Hutton, who was in town filming the movie &#8220;Iceman,&#8221; and the Oscar-winner invited them to join him and his buddies, also in their twenties, at their hotel.
When they got to the actor&#8217;s room, Johnston says, the guys offered the young teens alcoholic drinks and Hutton began &#8220;sidling up&#8221; to her. BuzzFeed&#8217;s Kate Aurthur and Adam B. Vary describe what Johnston says happened next:
<blockquote>Johnston doesn’t remember how she was led to Hutton’s bedroom, but said he asked whether she had ever had sex. Another man, Hutton’s friend, came into the room.
Johnston said she told them things like “I don’t think this is a good idea” and “I don’t think my mother would be too happy about this.” She said she wanted to leave. “To everything I would say, it was, ‘It’ll be OK, it’ll be OK. It won’t last long, and you’ll be fine.’” Hutton was kissing her neck, Johnston said. She felt frozen in fear.</blockquote>
The two men, she says, undressed her &#8220;like a doll,&#8221; then Hutton allegedly raped her while the other man attempted to put his penis in her mouth. Hutton told his friend to stop, Johnston says. &#8220;&#8216;She doesn’t like that,’ or whatever. Meanwhile, he finished raping me,&#8221; she claims.
Within hours of the publication of the accusation, <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/almost-family-canceled-fox-one-season-timothy-hutton-brittany-snow/">The Wrap</a> reported that Hutton&#8217;s show, the first season of which concluded just last month, was canceled. The outlet reports that Fox and “Almost Family” studio Universal Television &#8220;declined a request for comment regarding whether or not the accusations posed against Hutton today had anything to do with the network’s decision to end the show.&#8221;
The show, The Wrap points out, was not performing well, &#8220;settling for a 0.7 rating in the advertiser-coveted adults 18-49 demographic and 2.5 million total viewers,&#8221; according to Nielsen data.
Hutton&#8217;s lawyer said in a statement to BuzzFeed that Hutton &#8220;completely and unequivocally denies&#8221; Johnston&#8217;s allegations, that he has never met her, and that he &#8220;will not spend one more minute dignifying these allegations as they are patently false and designed only to extort money from him.&#8221;
As BuzzFeed reports, Hutton&#8217;s legal team provided the outlet &#8220;with an extensive array of information, including a 91-page letter (which they said may not be quoted), meant to discredit Johnston and halt this article. The substance of their argument: Johnston is a liar who’s trying to shake Hutton down.&#8221; (<a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kateaurthur/oscar-winning-actor-timothy-hutton-raped-me-when-i-was-14">Read the full report here</a>.)

FOX&#8217;s Almost Family Season One &#8211; Gallery

Fox Cancels New Show; News Comes Hours After Ex-Model’s Accusation Against Star Timothy Hutton

A teenager told police on February 19 that she was sexually assaulted by a man impersonating a police officer in Opelika, Alabama. Around 4:30 p.m. on the day in question, police arrived at Old Opelika Rd to look for the person impersonating an officer.
The teenager said she was driving alone at the time when a white pickup truck pulled up behind her. She said the truck had a flashing orange light, so the teenager assumed the man was an official. The teen said the driver approached her vehicle and sexually groped her before letting her drive away, WTVM <a href="https://www.wtvm.com/2020/02/20/teenage-driver-groped-by-man-impersonating-an-opelika-police-officer/">reported</a>.
The teen said the man was in his mid-to-late forties and wearing a black uniform with an Opelika Police badge on it, though it did not have patches on the sleeves.
When police recreated the events of the night based on the teen’s report using surveillance video from several cameras in the area, they discovered the assault as described could not have taken place. They confronted the teen with the evidence and she admitted she made up the whole thing, WTVM <a href="https://www.wtvm.com/2020/02/29/police-opelika-teen-driver-who-claimed-sexual-assault-by-police-impersonator-recants-story/?outputType=amp">reported</a>.
The outlet said police are keeping the investigation open but the focus is now on the teen’s false reporting. Opelika police told the outlet criminal charges are still being determined, if the woman is charged at all. The teen’s name has not been released because she is a minor. WTVM reported that “no further details will be given about the investigation or the outcome” because of her age.
The idea of a police state – like China – with hundreds of cameras on every street watching our every move is a terrifying prospect for America, yet there have been many cases where such cameras have been the only reason a falsely accused man was able to clear his name.
In February 2015, Lindsey Sweetin, a University of Arkansas student, told police she had been groped by a stranger in a parking garage. Police investigated her claims, which were disputed by witnesses and <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/student-charged-over-false-sexual-assault-accusation">surveillance video</a> of the area. Sweetin eventually admitted she had lied. Less than a year earlier, Julia Garcia claimed she had been raped in a different UA parking garage. Video surveillance again proved she was lying.
In 2017, a Lynn University student settled with his school after it suspended him for allegedly sexually assaulting a female student who claimed she was too drunk to consent. Again, <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2017/05/03/lynn-university-settles-student-police-say-falsely-accused-sexual-assault/">surveillance footage</a> showed this was not the case, as the woman was seen walking and talking normally with her friends both before and after her sexual encounter with the male student. Less than 30 minutes after she had sex with the male student, she was seen balancing on one foot while holding two cups of liquid and using her other foot to push the elevator door button.
In November 2018, a woman claimed a police officer raped her after she was arrested for shop lifting, but <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/she-claimed-police-officer-raped-her-surveillance-ashe-schow">in-car video</a> proved the male officer did no such thing.
In June 2019, a woman claimed an unknown man raped her in a parking lot after he jumped into her car and forced her to drive there. It later turned out the woman knew the man and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/she-claimed-she-was-sexually-assaulted-and-ashe-schow">surveillance footage</a> as well as other evidence proved it was not rape.
At Yale University in 2017, a male student was accused of sexually assaulting a drunk female student. The male student was found not guilty in 2018 at a trial after jurors saw <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2018/03/16/setting-the-record-straight-on-the-yale-sex-assault-trial/">surveillance footage</a> of the couple walking arm-in-arm back to their dorm. Prosecutors had claimed the male student was dragging the female student, yet cameras showed something different.
Just last week, Miranda S. Overton plead guilty to lying about a Navy sailor raping her two years earlier. As in the other cases, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/she-accused-a-sailor-of-sexual-assault-she-just-admitted-she-lied-so-her-significant-other-wouldnt-think-she-cheated">surveillance footage</a>, along with text messages, showed the rape didn’t happen – the sex was actually consensual.

Police stop

She Claimed A Police Impersonator Sexually Assaulted Her. Surveillance Footage Proved It Didn’t Happen.

After Harvey Weinstein was convicted of rape earlier this week, Hollywood actress Rose McGowan, who was one of the first women to speak out about Weinstein’s behavior, criticized the Manhattan District Attorney’s office for not prosecuting Weinstein sooner. 
“I really thought we were going to talk about him getting off, and it’s not because I was thinking ‘oh, the jury, or this or that,’ it was just the people behind it, the people behind the charges,” McGowan told journalist Ronan Farrow on an <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-catch-and-kill-podcast-with-ronan-farrow/id1487730212?i=1000466991283">episode</a> of the “Catch and Kill” podcast. 
Aside from blaming the district attorney’s office, McGowan also blamed Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) for halting a probe into how a 2015 criminal investigation of Weinstein was handled. 
“The DA that dropped the effort to charge him before; Cuomo, who dropped the investigation into Cyrus Vance, quietly and without much notice. I wonder if he’ll pick that one up. Didn’t the DA of the sex crimes unit just step down last week?” said McGowan. 
“They have rape on their hands, they have pain on their hands, not that they care. They also took huge donations, they’re all connected through the Democratic Party. Governor Cuomo, I find it really troublesome that he dropped the investigation into Cy Vance the DA,” said McGowan. 
“There’s some stuff that needs to be uncovered there,” said McGowan. 
In 2015, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance (D-NY) declined to press charges against Harvey Weinstein for allegedly groping Italian model Ambra Gutierrez and reaching up her skirt. Gutierrez went to the authorities immediately after the incident, and obtained a recording of Weinstein admitting to touching her breasts the following day. 
As the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/listen-police-sting-captures-conversation-between-weinstein-and-italian-model">Daily Wire</a> previously reported, the recording was obtained as part of a police sting operation, and Gutierrez received the admission as the former movie mogul unsuccessfully tried to pressure her into his hotel room for a “massage.”
<blockquote>GUTIERREZ: I know, but yesterday was too much for me. 
WEINSTEIN: I will never do another thing to you. Five minutes: Don’t ruin your friendship with me for five minutes. 
GUTIERREZ: I know, but it’s kind of like, it’s too much for me….
GUTIERREZ: Why yesterday you touched my breasts?
WEINSTEIN: Oh please, I’m sorry, just come on in, I’m used to that. 
GUTIERREZ: You’re used to that?
WEINSTEIN: Yes, come in. 
GUTIERREZ: No, but I’m not used to that. 
WEINSTEIN: I won’t do it again. Come on, sit here. Sit here for a minute, please?</blockquote>
“It’s obviously sickening,” Vance said in 2015 regarding the audio recording, reported the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/nyregion/cy-vance-defends-weinstein-decision.html">New York Times</a>. “But at the end of the day we operate in a courtroom of law, not the court of public opinion, and our sex crime prosecutors made a determination that this was not going to be a provable case.”
However, while Vance’s office was deciding whether to press charges, Weinstein was being represented by Elkan Abramowitz, a former colleague of Vance and donor to his campaigns, reported the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/15/nyregion/defense-lawyers-donations-district-attorney.html">Times</a>. 
As the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/report-weinsteins-law-firm-gave-andrew-cuomo-25k-hank-berrien">Daily Wire</a> previously reported, David Boies, a lawyer who represented Weinstein in civil cases, donated $10,000 to Vance in the months after the DA decided to not pursue the case against Weinstein. 
In response, Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic governor of New York, launched a 2018 investigation into how Vance handled the decision to not charge Weinstein, saying it was necessary to establish that the cases were pursued adequately as a matter of “public confidence.”
“It is of great concern that sexual assault cases have not been pursued with full vigor by our criminal justice system,” said Cuomo at the time, shortly after receiving a high-profile letter to investigate the matter, reports the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/nyregion/cy-vance-harvey-weinstein-cuomo.html">Times</a>. 
“It is critical not only that these cases are given the utmost attention but also that there is public confidence in the handling of these cases,” said Cuomo. 
As the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/report-weinsteins-law-firm-gave-andrew-cuomo-25k-hank-berrien">Daily Wire</a> previously reported, later that year, Cuomo suspended the investigation into Vance, around the same time the governor’s campaign received $25,000 from the law firm where attorney David Boies worked. Between 2009 and 2018, the Cuomo campaign received a total $250,000 from Boies and his associates at the law firm. 
Earlier this week, a Manhattan jury found Weinstein guilty of first-degree criminal sexual assault and third-degree rape for two instances unrelated to the 2015 investigation. Weinstein was acquitted of two counts of predatory sexual assault, the most serious charges, but still faces between five and twenty-nine years in prison, and has a pending criminal case in Los Angeles. 
Martha Bashford, the sex crimes district attorney who recommended in 2015 that Vance not charge Weinstein, <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/martha-bashford-sex-crimes-chief-who-didnt-prosecute-harvey-weinstein-resigns">resigned</a> several days before the jury began deliberations. 
In response to Weinstein’s guilty verdict, McGowan tweeted at the Manhattan DA’s office and Cuomo, demanding that they bring unspecified actions forward. 
“Harvey Weinstein is a convicted rapist. The preferential treatment by [The Manhattan DA’s Office] must end. You let [Harvey Weinstein] off before, he donated [money] to you [and] raped again. A jury found him guilty. Please do not betray your oath of office, [Andrew Cuomo], we demand action,” tweeted McGowan earlier this week. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Harvey Weinstein is a convicted rapist. The preferential treatment by <a href="https://twitter.com/ManhattanDA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ManhattanDA</a> must end. You let HW off before, he donated $ to you &amp; raped again. A jury found him guilty. Please do not betray your oath of office. <a href="https://twitter.com/andrewcuomo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@andrewcuomo</a>, We demand action
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) <a href="https://twitter.com/rosemcgowan/status/1232782615419244544?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 26, 2020</a></blockquote>
After the Weinstein verdict, Cyrus Vance declared in a press conference that there was now a “new landscape for survivors of sexual assault in America,” reports the <a href="https://apnews.com/67057b46fcd3f1183cf6a699a399c886">Associated Press</a>. 
“It is a new day because Harvey Weinstein has finally been held accountable for crimes he committed,” said Vance. “Weinstein is a vicious, serial sexual predator who used his power to threaten, rape, assault and trick, humiliate and silence his victims.”
According to the <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/ambra-gutierrez-says-da-cy-vance-should-absolutely-resign-for-dropping-her-harvey-weinstein-case">Daily Beast</a>, Ambra Gutierrez, the Italian model who accused Weinstein of groping her in 2015, has called on Vance to resign. 
“It should be accepted that he did something wrong, because otherwise it could discourage a lot of other victims [from going] forward with their cases, and I feel that’s not fair,” Gutierrez told the news agency. “We really need to give the right example.”

US-ENTERTAINMENT-ABUSE-TRIAL-WEINSTEIN

‘All Connected Through The Democratic Party’: Actress Rose McGowan Unloads After Weinstein Verdict

Harvey Weinstein

Rose McGowan

In an interview with &#8220;CBS This Morning&#8221; that aired Friday, one of the twelve jurors who found mega-producer Harvey Weinstein guilty of two of the lesser of the five charges brought against him in the state of New York offered a glimpse into what was going on behind the scenes during the five-day deliberation process and addressed some of the key arguments in the case.
On Monday, a jury composed of seven men and five women convicted Weinstein on two of five charges brought against him in the state — a criminal sex act in the first degree and rape in the third degree — but acquitted the disgraced producer on the most serious charges in the case: two counts of predatory sexual assault and one count of first-degree rape. Instead of a potential life sentence, Weinstein now faces up to 29 years in prison.
During the trial, six women testified that Weinstein had sexually assaulted them, but the charges stemmed from only two of the women&#8217;s accusations. The other four alleged victims&#8217; testimonies were intended to show a pattern of abusive behavior by the powerful Hollywood figure.
The trial, as &#8220;CBS This Morning&#8221; co-host Gayle King noted in the interview, was a pivotal moment in the #MeToo movement, but &#8220;juror number nine,&#8221; Drew, says that the movement had no impact on the jury&#8217;s decision.
&#8220;It would be an adulteration of the process to take outside factors and have that weigh on our decision-making process and eventual findings,&#8221; Drew told King, as reported by <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/harvey-weinstein-juror-verdict-not-message-about-metoo-movement/">CBS News</a>.
&#8220;We were there to do a job, to make a decision based on the information that was presented to us,&#8221; he said, &#8220;and we have absolutely no stance or voice or opinion as to any type of larger movement.&#8221;
The focus during the five days of deliberation, said Drew, was to closely examine the legal definitions of the charges and weigh those against the evidence.
The details of Jessica Mann&#8217;s testimony, he said, merited a conviction of third-degree rape, not first-degree rape, based on both terms&#8217; legal definitions.
&#8220;It wasn&#8217;t rape in the first degree. There was no physical compulsion with the threat of bodily harm or death,&#8221; he explained. &#8220;But there was no consent given, despite a lack of physical resistance, and a reasonable person should have known that there was no consent given in that instance.&#8221;
One of the key arguments of the defense was that some of the victims maintained relationships with Weinstein after the assaults, and Drew revealed that the jury wrestled early on with that contention. &#8220;In the earlier parts of the deliberation, there was huge discourse about things of that nature,&#8221; he said.
When King pressed Drew if the defense&#8217;s argument factored into their decision, Drew said no. &#8220;It&#8217;s an alleged incident, not kind of this whole canvas of relationship,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s, you know, husbands can rape their wives. And it&#8217;s a complicated issue, for sure, but it was our contention that it&#8217;s one incident.&#8221;
One of the controversies that arose during the lengthy deliberations was the jurors sending a note on the fourth day to the judge asking if it was possible to be split on some of the counts and unanimous on others. The note, said Drew, was an attempt to gain clarification and probably not handled carefully enough.
&#8220;Maybe that&#8217;s our fault for the syntax of the note,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But I know now that people kind of deduced that maybe he was guilty somewhere along the line, and I&#8217;ll tell you, I was sick about it. Because, he&#8217;s a human being and he&#8217;s going home that night and knowing that he&#8217;s walking into court Monday morning and potentially not leaving.&#8221;
In reference to &#8220;Sopranos&#8221; actress Annabella Sciorra&#8217;s testimony, which was allowed as part of the prosecution&#8217;s attempt to show an alleged pattern of abuse to merit a &#8220;predatory assault&#8221; charge, Drew suggested that while her testimony was &#8220;compelling,&#8221; the prosecution did not meet the &#8220;very high burden&#8221; required for such a charge.
&#8220;But these are serious allegations, and that&#8217;s a very high burden that the prosecution took upon itself in bringing these charges,&#8221; he explained. &#8220;It&#8217;s 27 years ago, and in this country, you know, you and I and even Harvey Weinstein are innocent until proven beyond a reasonable doubt of the opposite.&#8221;
As for Weinstein&#8217;s decision not to take the stand, Drew said that while he &#8220;wanted him to,&#8221; the decision did not impact the process because they focused on &#8220;what we had in front of us,&#8221; rather than conjecture.
The focus, Drew said in summary, was to avoid &#8220;groupthink&#8221; and to try to maintain complete &#8220;objectivity&#8221; in the process, which he said he feels he personally was able to accomplish despite the high-profile and highly charged nature of the case. (<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/harvey-weinstein-juror-verdict-not-message-about-metoo-movement/">See the interview here</a>.)

Juror Reveals What Was Going On Behind The Scenes During Harvey Weinstein Trial

Hollywood

In a lengthy Instagram post published Wednesday, British singer Duffy revealed that her sudden departure from the music industry in the late 2000s was due to a traumatic experience in which she was allegedly drugged, raped, and held captive for multiple days.
&#8220;You can only imagine the amount of times I thought about writing this,&#8221; Duffy started the post. &#8220;The way I would write it, how I would feel thereafter. Well, not entirely sure why now is the right time, and what it is that feels exciting and liberating for me to talk. I cannot explain it.&#8221;
&#8220;Many of you wonder what happened to me,&#8221; she continued, &#8220;where did I disappear to and why.&#8221;
After a journalist contacted her, the singer explained, &#8220;he found a way to reach me and I told him everything this past summer. He was kind and it felt so amazing to finally speak.&#8221;
&#8220;The truth is, and please trust me I am ok and safe now, I was raped and drugged and held captive over some days,&#8221; revealed Duffy.
&#8220;Of course I survived,&#8221; she said. &#8220;The recovery took time. There’s no light way to say it. But I can tell you in the last decade, the thousands and thousands of days I committed to wanting to feel the sunshine in my heart again, the sun does now shine.&#8221;
Duffy said she only came forward now to tell her story because she &#8220;did not want to show the world the sadness in my eyes.&#8221;
&#8220;I asked myself, how can I sing from the heart if it is broken?&#8221; the post continued.  &#8220;And slowly it unbroke.&#8221;
The singer revealed that the audio interview she recorded with the unnamed male journalist will be released in coming weeks.
&#8220;I have a sacred love and sincere appreciation for your kindness over the years. You have been friends. I want to thank you for that,&#8221; the singer signed off, adding: &#8220;Please respect this is a gentle move for me to make, for myself, and I do not want any intrusion to my family. Please support me to make this a positive experience.&#8221;
As noted by <a href="https://variety.com/2020/music/news/duffy-british-pop-sensation-reveals-assault-reason-absence-1203515398/">Variety</a>, Duffy had a budding career in the late 2000s, seemingly &#8220;poised for the kind of massive neo-soul career that Adele has enjoyed in her wake.&#8221; But since her departure from music, until now, Duffy &#8220;usually ended up pointing to statements she made during and after the promotion cycle of her second album about her disaffection for all that came with being a star&#8221; to explain her absence from the industry.
Duffy is best known for her 2008 hit single “Mercy,” which peaked at No. 27 on the Billboard Hot 100, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/singer-duffy-raped-drugged-held-captive-days">Fox News</a> reported, adding that the musical talent earned a Grammy award for best pop vocal album for “Rockferry&#8221; in 2008. Duffy also stacked up two &#8220;two more nominations in the same year for best new artist and best female pop vocal performance with &#8216;Mercy,'&#8221; Fox noted.
Duffy released another album in 2010, titled &#8220;Endlessly,&#8221; before largely leaving the industry, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/26/entertainment/duffy-instagram-post/index.html">CNN</a> noted.
<blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/B8_95uYhFMQ/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="12" style=" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:500px; min-width:326px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);">
<div style="padding:16px;"> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B8_95uYhFMQ/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" background:#FFFFFF; line-height:0; padding:0 0; text-align:center; text-decoration:none; width:100%;" target="_blank"> 
<div style=" display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;">
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;">
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div>
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div>
<div style="display:block; height:50px; margin:0 auto 12px; width:50px;"><svg width="50px" height="50px" viewBox="0 0 60 60" version="1.1" xmlns="https://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><g stroke="none" stroke-width="1" fill="none" fill-rule="evenodd"><g transform="translate(-511.000000, -20.000000)" fill="#000000"><g><path d="M556.869,30.41 C554.814,30.41 553.148,32.076 553.148,34.131 C553.148,36.186 554.814,37.852 556.869,37.852 C558.924,37.852 560.59,36.186 560.59,34.131 C560.59,32.076 558.924,30.41 556.869,30.41 M541,60.657 C535.114,60.657 530.342,55.887 530.342,50 C530.342,44.114 535.114,39.342 541,39.342 C546.887,39.342 551.658,44.114 551.658,50 C551.658,55.887 546.887,60.657 541,60.657 M541,33.886 C532.1,33.886 524.886,41.1 524.886,50 C524.886,58.899 532.1,66.113 541,66.113 C549.9,66.113 557.115,58.899 557.115,50 C557.115,41.1 549.9,33.886 541,33.886 M565.378,62.101 C565.244,65.022 564.756,66.606 564.346,67.663 C563.803,69.06 563.154,70.057 562.106,71.106 C561.058,72.155 560.06,72.803 558.662,73.347 C557.607,73.757 556.021,74.244 553.102,74.378 C549.944,74.521 548.997,74.552 541,74.552 C533.003,74.552 532.056,74.521 528.898,74.378 C525.979,74.244 524.393,73.757 523.338,73.347 C521.94,72.803 520.942,72.155 519.894,71.106 C518.846,70.057 518.197,69.06 517.654,67.663 C517.244,66.606 516.755,65.022 516.623,62.101 C516.479,58.943 516.448,57.996 516.448,50 C516.448,42.003 516.479,41.056 516.623,37.899 C516.755,34.978 517.244,33.391 517.654,32.338 C518.197,30.938 518.846,29.942 519.894,28.894 C520.942,27.846 521.94,27.196 523.338,26.654 C524.393,26.244 525.979,25.756 528.898,25.623 C532.057,25.479 533.004,25.448 541,25.448 C548.997,25.448 549.943,25.479 553.102,25.623 C556.021,25.756 557.607,26.244 558.662,26.654 C560.06,27.196 561.058,27.846 562.106,28.894 C563.154,29.942 563.803,30.938 564.346,32.338 C564.756,33.391 565.244,34.978 565.378,37.899 C565.522,41.056 565.552,42.003 565.552,50 C565.552,57.996 565.522,58.943 565.378,62.101 M570.82,37.631 C570.674,34.438 570.167,32.258 569.425,30.349 C568.659,28.377 567.633,26.702 565.965,25.035 C564.297,23.368 562.623,22.342 560.652,21.575 C558.743,20.834 556.562,20.326 553.369,20.18 C550.169,20.033 549.148,20 541,20 C532.853,20 531.831,20.033 528.631,20.18 C525.438,20.326 523.257,20.834 521.349,21.575 C519.376,22.342 517.703,23.368 516.035,25.035 C514.368,26.702 513.342,28.377 512.574,30.349 C511.834,32.258 511.326,34.438 511.181,37.631 C511.035,40.831 511,41.851 511,50 C511,58.147 511.035,59.17 511.181,62.369 C511.326,65.562 511.834,67.743 512.574,69.651 C513.342,71.625 514.368,73.296 516.035,74.965 C517.703,76.634 519.376,77.658 521.349,78.425 C523.257,79.167 525.438,79.673 528.631,79.82 C531.831,79.965 532.853,80.001 541,80.001 C549.148,80.001 550.169,79.965 553.369,79.82 C556.562,79.673 558.743,79.167 560.652,78.425 C562.623,77.658 564.297,76.634 565.965,74.965 C567.633,73.296 568.659,71.625 569.425,69.651 C570.167,67.743 570.674,65.562 570.82,62.369 C570.966,59.17 571,58.147 571,50 C571,41.851 570.966,40.831 570.82,37.631"></path></g></g></g></svg></div>
<div style="padding-top: 8px;">
<div style=" color:#3897f0; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:550; line-height:18px;"> View this post on Instagram</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;">
<div>
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"></div>
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 8px;">
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"></div>
<div style=" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg)"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: auto;">
<div style=" width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"></div>
<div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"></div>
<div style=" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"></div>
</div>
</div>
</a> 
 <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B8_95uYhFMQ/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">You can only imagine the amount of times I thought about writing this. The way I would write it, how I would feel thereafter. Well, not entirely sure why now is the right time, and what it is that feels exciting and liberating for me to talk. I cannot explain it. Many of you wonder what happened to me, where did I disappear to and why. A journalist contacted me, he found a way to reach me and I told him everything this past summer. He was kind and it felt so amazing to finally speak. The truth is, and please trust me I am ok and safe now, I was raped and drugged and held captive over some days. Of course I survived. The recovery took time. There’s no light way to say it. But I can tell you in the last decade, the thousands and thousands of days I committed to wanting to feel the sunshine in my heart again, the sun does now shine. You wonder why I did not choose to use my voice to express my pain? I did not want to show the world the sadness in my eyes. I asked myself, how can I sing from the heart if it is broken? And slowly it unbroke. In the following weeks I will be posting a spoken interview. If you have any questions I would like to answer them, in the spoken interview, if I can. I have a sacred love and sincere appreciation for your kindness over the years. You have been friends. I want to thank you for that x Duffy Please respect this is a gentle move for me to make, for myself, and I do not want any intrusion to my family. Please support me to make this a positive experience.</a>
<p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A post shared by @<a href="https://www.instagram.com/duffy/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px;" target="_blank"> duffy</a> on <time style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;" datetime="2020-02-25T18:12:57+00:00">Feb 25, 2020 at 10:12am PST</time>
</div>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script>

British Singer Duffy

Singer Duffy Reveals Sudden Departure From Music Industry: ‘I Was Raped And Drugged And Held Captive’

Music

After five days of deliberations following a highly publicized trial, movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has been convicted on two of five charges brought against him in the state of New York — a criminal sex act in the first degree and rape in the third degree — but acquitted on the most serious charges in the case, two counts of predatory sexual assault and one count of first-degree rape, which could have put him away for life.
The jury of 12 people — seven men and five women — presented their decision Monday morning after five days of much-scrutinized deliberations.
&#8220;Harvey Weinstein, the powerhouse film producer whose downfall over sexual misconduct ignited a global movement, was found guilty on Monday of a felony sex crime and rape after a trial in which six women testified that he had sexually assaulted them,&#8221; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/nyregion/harvey-weinstein-verdict.html">The New York Times</a> reports. &#8220;But the jury acquitted Mr. Weinstein of the two top charges against him, predatory sexual assault.&#8221;
As explained by <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/harvey-weinstein-found-guilty-1279731">The Hollywood Reporter,</a> in New York State, an individual &#8220;can be convicted of predatory sexual assault when a jury has determined that the person committed a first degree rape, criminal sexual act or aggravated sexual abuse against more than one other person.&#8221;
Weinstein faces up to 25 years in prison for the first-degree sexual assault conviction and up to four years for the third-degree rape conviction, <a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20200224161417-cln8q">Reuters</a> reports.
The verdict followed a reported deadlock on the two most serious charges on Friday, but apparent unanimity on the three lesser charges: criminal sex act, first-degree rape, and third-degree rape. The jury ended up agreeing to convict him on two of the three lesser charges, a first-degree criminal sex act and third-degree rape.
<div>
&#8220;Mr. Weinstein sat between his lawyers looking straight ahead when it was announced that the jury had reached a verdict,&#8221; the Times reports. &#8220;Four court officers stood behind him, and Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, sat nearby in the front row of the courtroom.&#8221;
According to the Times, Wesintein &#8220;appeared unmoved as the verdict was read.&#8221;
&#8220;He was found not guilty on the two counts of predatory sexual assault, which suggests that one or some jurors did not believe the testimony of Annabella Sciorra, an actress best known for her work in &#8216;The Sopranos,'&#8221; the Times suggests.
The case against Weinstein in New York involved the accusations of two women: former television production assistant Miriam Haley, who testified that he forced oral sex on her in 2006 at his apartment in Manhattan, and former actress Jessica Mann, who accused him of raping her in 2013 in a hotel room in the city.
&#8220;Ms. Mann and Ms. Haley both acknowledged that they continued to see Mr. Weinstein after the alleged assaults and later had consensual sex with him, testimony that complicated the prosecution’s case,&#8221; the Times reports.
Four other women — Sciorra, Dawn Dunning, Tarale Wulff, and Lauren Young — were allowed to testify against Weinstein in the trial, though no charges were brought in connection to their claims.
<div>
The Hollywood Reporter notes that Weinstein&#8217;s lawyers said they would accept a partial verdict on Friday, but the prosecutor leading the case rejected the offer, prompting Judge James Burke to order the jury to continue to deliberate.
While the New York case now awaits sentencing, Weinstein is the subject of another case in California, where a Los Angeles County jury is considering similar charges against him.
This article has been revised for clarity and expanded to include more details about the case.
</div>
</div>

Harvey Weinstein Convicted On Two Of Five Charges, Acquitted Of Most Serious Charges

Internet porn empire Pornhub has come under fire in recent days for featuring videos of rape and sex trafficking victims on its platform.
In an <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/time-to-shut-pornhub-down">explosive op-ed</a> in the Washington Examiner on Sunday, Laila Mickelwait noted &#8220;several shocking cases of sex trafficking and child rape films that were hosted on Pornhub&#8221; over the past few months, including one involving a 15-year-old girl who was missing for up to a year until her mother discovered 58 videos of her being hosted on the site. The girl&#8217;s trafficker was eventually spotted in a 7-Eleven surveillance video before police arrested him. Another case involved Michael Pratt, owner of GirlsDoPorn, who coerced 22 women into performing sex acts on camera; the acts were later posted to Pornhub.
&#8220;These women sued GirlsDoPorn and won a $12.7 million lawsuit against the company,&#8221; reported Mickelwait. &#8220;According to a federal indictment, Pratt and his co-conspirators produced child pornography and trafficked a minor. Pratt reportedly fled the United States for New Zealand and is currently wanted on a federal warrant.&#8221;
So how does Pornhub factor into this? Does the site in any way bear responsibility for these women being sex trafficked for the purpose of exploitation on its platform? According to Mickelwait, the site hosts up to six million videos per year that collectively generate a whopping 42 billion visitors and huge ad revenue. Throughout all this, the site &#8220;has no system in place to verify reliably the age or consent of those featured in the pornographic content it hosts.&#8221;
&#8220;In fact, all that is needed to upload pornography onto Pornhub is an email address,&#8221; writes Mickelwait. &#8220;No government-issued ID is required, not even to become &#8216;verified&#8217; with its trusty blue checkmark that makes everything seem a-OK. It took me under 10 minutes to create a user account and upload blank test content to the site, which went live instantly. I could have then gone on to become Pornhub-verified, and all I would need to do is send a photo of myself holding a paper with my username. That’s it.&#8221;
Beyond that, a simple search for &#8220;teen porn&#8221; on the site yields hundreds of videos featuring girls who look very young, complete with &#8220;braces, pigtails &#8230; and extremely young faces.&#8221; Some girls are even shown &#8220;holding teddy bears and licking lollipops.&#8221;
According to a recent investigation by <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9393zp/how-pornhub-moderation-works-girls-do-porn">VICE Motherboard</a>, Pornhub&#8217;s alleged &#8220;high-tech solution&#8221; meant to stop the spread and posting of such videos is all but useless:
<blockquote>Pornhub claims that victims of nonconsensual porn — as many of the Girls Do Porn videos are — can easily request to remove videos from the site, and that those videos can be &#8220;fingerprinted.&#8221; Broadly speaking, video fingerprinting is a method for software to identify, extract, and then summarize characteristic components or metadata of a video, allowing that video to be uniquely identified by its &#8220;fingerprint.&#8221;
But a Motherboard investigation found that this system can be easily and quickly circumvented with minor editing. Pornhub&#8217;s current method for removing Girls Do Porn videos and other forms of non-consensual porn not only puts the onus of finding and flagging videos almost entirely on potentially-traumatized victims — those victims can&#8217;t even rely on the system to work.</blockquote>
Dr. Ann Olivarius, founder of McAllister Olivarius, bluntly stated that Pornhub essentially has no incentive to regulate such videos so long as they continue to pad its bottom line.
“The core problem is that image-based abuse videos (so-called revenge porn), and coerced videos such as Girls Do Porn, are a significant part of Pornhub and other sites’ business models,&#8221; said Dr. Olivarius. &#8220;They are massively popular with users and with site owners, and either free or incredibly cheap to produce. What, exactly, is the incentive for a site like Pornhub to remove one of their most popular products?&#8221;

Pornographic video sharing website Pornhub logo is seen on

Pornhub Under Fire After Videos Of Rapes, Sex Trafficking Victims Posted To Site

Human Trafficking

Internet

pornography

Charges were expected to be dropped against an orthopedic surgeon and his girlfriend on Friday after the Orange County district attorney said he wanted to dismiss the case and claimed his predecessor had “manufactured” the case. In a stunning twist, however, a judge declined to dismiss the charges based on the district attorney’s word and instead said he needed more time to decide whether he will grant the dismissal.
As The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/charges-dropped-against-couple-accused-of-drugging-raping-1000-women-prosecutor-says-predecessor-manufactured-case">reported</a>, Grant Robicheaux and his girlfriend Cerissa Riley, a substitute teacher, were accused luring women to their Newport Beach, California home, drugging them, and then raping them. From The Daily Wire:
<blockquote>In September 2018, then-district attorney Tony Rackauckas said during a press conference that investigators had “hundreds” of videos taken from the couple’s phones showing evidence that they had drugged and raped the women and then filmed the crimes. He was asked during that press conference whether the number could approach one thousand, and Rackauckas said, “I think so.”
Rackauckas lost his re-election bid a few months later. The new DA, Todd Spitzer, decided to re-investigate the case after he saw an unsealed deposition from Rackauckas explaining that he hoped the case against Robicheaux and Riley would help him get re-elected.</blockquote>
Spitzer reopened the case, and said during a press conference that a “team of prosecutors with a combined 175 years of experience determined there is no provable evidence that Robicheaux and Riley committed any sexual offense.” Spitzer then accused his predecessor of manufacturing the case.
“The prior District Attorney and his chief of staff manufactured this case and repeatedly misstated the evidence to lead the public and vulnerable women to believe that these two individuals plied up to 1,000 women with drugs and alcohol in order to sexually assault them—and videotape the assaults,” Spitzer said.
“As a result of the complete case review I ordered beginning in July, we now know that there was not a single video or photograph depicting an unconscious or incapacitated woman being sexually assaulted,” he added.
A judge on Friday said he needed more information about the case and the alleged evidence behind it before dismissing the charges, ABC 7 <a href="https://abc7.com/5912292/">reported</a>. Spitzer remained hopeful that the judge would eventually dismiss the case, saying the judge “has been involved in this case from its inception and it is completely reasonable that he would want a thorough understanding of the facts.&#8221;
The judge, according to ABC 7, added that politics were evident in the case and he needed to sort through the competing claims. As the outlet reported, both sides must submit final argument briefs by March 19. The next hearing is set for April 3.
An attorney for the accused couple, Philip Cohen, told the outlet that even if the charges are dismissed the defendants have had their lives ruined.
&#8220;The biggest problem in this case continues &#8211; what do Grant and Cerissa do with the rest of their lives and what confidence can the public have that they are not rapists, they&#8217;re not monsters, that they&#8217;re not villains?&#8221; Cohen said.
Then, of course, there are the attorneys representing women claiming to be victims of the couple.
&#8220;This gives us an opportunity to also evaluate the information to understand why the DA is making the decision that they&#8217;re making and for us to object if we&#8217;d like to judge if we&#8217;d like that charge to remain,&#8221; said one of the accuser’s attorneys, Mike Fell.

Menu

Rape

Police: Rape Suspect Gets Released From Jail Over COVID, Allegedly Murders His Accuser

Woman Caught On Camera Raping Two Young Boys, Already Received Special Treatment

She Claimed He Raped Her And He Was Arrested. She Was Soon Charged With Filing A False Police Report.

They Were Accused Of Rape And Jailed For One Year Even Though DNA Proved Their Innocence. They’re Now Suing.

Her School Didn’t Find The Man She Accused Responsible For Sexual Assault, So She Took To Social Media To Shame The School

The ‘Golden State Killer’ Terrorized California in The 1970s And 80s. The Man Accused Of The Crimes Is Expected To Plead Guilty.

A Black Man Was Imprisoned After A White Woman’s False Rape Accusation. He Was Just Posthumously Pardoned.

She Accused Him Of Sexual Assault And He Was Arrested. Text Messages And Inconsistencies Showed He Was Innocent.

A Woman Who Accused Former Casino Mogul Steve Wynn Of Rape Was Found To Have Defamed Him

She Claimed She Was Bound And Raped In A Hotel Room. Internet Searches Proved She Lied.

Female Teacher Actually Jailed For Raping Teen Boys

Kim Kardashian, Beyoncé, Oprah Advocated For Death Row Rapist And Murderer. Supreme Court: NOPE.

Fox Cancels New Show; News Comes Hours After Ex-Model’s Accusation Against Star Timothy Hutton

She Claimed A Police Impersonator Sexually Assaulted Her. Surveillance Footage Proved It Didn’t Happen.

‘All Connected Through The Democratic Party’: Actress Rose McGowan Unloads After Weinstein Verdict

Juror Reveals What Was Going On Behind The Scenes During Harvey Weinstein Trial

Singer Duffy Reveals Sudden Departure From Music Industry: ‘I Was Raped And Drugged And Held Captive’

Harvey Weinstein Convicted On Two Of Five Charges, Acquitted Of Most Serious Charges

Pornhub Under Fire After Videos Of Rapes, Sex Trafficking Victims Posted To Site

Judge Refuses To Dismiss Charges Against Couple Accused Of Drugging And Raping 1,000; DA Had Said Predecessor ‘Manufactured’ Case

Menu

Rape

Police: Rape Suspect Gets Released From Jail Over COVID, Allegedly Murders His Accuser

Woman Caught On Camera Raping Two Young Boys, Already Received Special Treatment

She Claimed He Raped Her And He Was Arrested. She Was Soon Charged With Filing A False Police Report.

They Were Accused Of Rape And Jailed For One Year Even Though DNA Proved Their Innocence. They’re Now Suing.

Her School Didn’t Find The Man She Accused Responsible For Sexual Assault, So She Took To Social Media To Shame The School

The ‘Golden State Killer’ Terrorized California in The 1970s And 80s. The Man Accused Of The Crimes Is Expected To Plead Guilty.

A Black Man Was Imprisoned After A White Woman’s False Rape Accusation. He Was Just Posthumously Pardoned.

She Accused Him Of Sexual Assault And He Was Arrested. Text Messages And Inconsistencies Showed He Was Innocent.

A Woman Who Accused Former Casino Mogul Steve Wynn Of Rape Was Found To Have Defamed Him

She Claimed She Was Bound And Raped In A Hotel Room. Internet Searches Proved She Lied.

Female Teacher Actually Jailed For Raping Teen Boys

Kim Kardashian, Beyoncé, Oprah Advocated For Death Row Rapist And Murderer. Supreme Court: NOPE.

Fox Cancels New Show; News Comes Hours After Ex-Model’s Accusation Against Star Timothy Hutton

She Claimed A Police Impersonator Sexually Assaulted Her. Surveillance Footage Proved It Didn’t Happen.

‘All Connected Through The Democratic Party’: Actress Rose McGowan Unloads After Weinstein Verdict

Juror Reveals What Was Going On Behind The Scenes During Harvey Weinstein Trial

Singer Duffy Reveals Sudden Departure From Music Industry: ‘I Was Raped And Drugged And Held Captive’

Harvey Weinstein Convicted On Two Of Five Charges, Acquitted Of Most Serious Charges

Pornhub Under Fire After Videos Of Rapes, Sex Trafficking Victims Posted To Site

Judge Refuses To Dismiss Charges Against Couple Accused Of Drugging And Raping 1,000; DA Had Said Predecessor ‘Manufactured’ Case

Don't miss a beat of our coverage.