sexual assault Archives

Tag: <span>sexual assault</span>

Nevada Supreme Court orders dismissal of Nathan Chasing Horse…

26 September 2024
by admin

The Nevada Supreme Court has ordered the dismissal of a sprawling sex abuse indictment against Nathan Chasing Horse, while leaving open the possibility of charges being refiled in a case that sent shockwaves throughout Indian Country and led to more criminal charges in the U.S. and Canada.

The full seven-member court’s decision, issued Thursday, reverses earlier rulings upholding the charges by a three-member panel of the high court and a state judge. Proceedings in the 18-count criminal case have been at a standstill for more than a year while the former “Dances with Wolves” actor challenged it.

Kristy Holston, the deputy public defender representing Chasing Horse, had argued that some evidence presented to the grand jury, including an improper definition of grooming that was presented without expert testimony, had tainted the state’s case. Holston said prosecutors also failed to provide the grand jury with exculpatory evidence, including inconsistent statements made by one of the victims.

Nathan Chasing Horse, in a Jan. 31, 2023, booking photo

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department via AP

The high court agreed.

“The combination of these two clear errors undermines our confidence in the grand jury proceedings and created intolerable damage to the independent function of the grand jury process,” the court said in its scathing order.

Holston declined to comment further. Prosecutor Stacy Kollins did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

The ruling directs the judge overseeing the case in Clark County District Court to dismiss the indictment without prejudice, meaning the charges can be refiled.

“The allegations against Chasing Horse are indisputably serious, and we express no opinion about Chasing Horse’s guilt or innocence,” the order says.

Chasing Horse’s lawyer had also had argued that the case should be dismissed because, the former actor said, the sexual encounters were consensual. One of his accusers was younger than 16, the age of consent in Nevada, when the alleged abuse began, authorities said.

The 48-year-old has been in custody since his arrest last January near the North Las Vegas home he is said to have shared with five wives. Inside the home, police found firearms, 41 pounds of marijuana and psilocybin mushrooms, and a memory card with videos of sexual assaults, CBS News previously reported. Police said that at least two of the women were underage when he married them: One was 15, police said, and another was 16.

Chasing Horse Arrest Nevada — Nathan Chasing Horse sits in court in Las Vegas, Monday, April 3, 2023.

Ty O’Neil / AP

Chasing Horse is best known for portraying Smiles A Lot in the 1990 film “Dances with Wolves.” But in the decades since starring in the Oscar-winning movie, authorities said, he built a reputation as self-proclaimed medicine man among tribes and traveled around North America to perform healing ceremonies. An arrest warrant stated that he is believed to be the leader of a cult called “The Circle,” whose followers believe he can communicate with higher powers, CBS News previously reported.

He is accused of using that position to gain access to vulnerable girls and women starting in the early 2000s.

He also faces criminal sexual abuse charges in at least four other jurisdictions, including U.S. District Court in Nevada and on the Fort Perk Indian Reservation in Montana.
Tribal leaders voted to ban him from the Montana reservation in 2015, citing alleged trafficking and accusations of drug dealing, spiritual abuse and intimidation of tribal members.

Las Vegas police arrested Chasing Horse in January 2023. The arrest helped law enforcement agencies in two countries corroborate long-standing allegations against the former actor. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported that police in southern Alberta have been investigating his possible connection to past sexual assaults.

Science & Environment

Michigan judge orders Sean

10 September 2024
by admin

Judge orders Sean “Diddy” Combs to pay Michigan man $100M in case alleging sexual assault

00:55

DETROIT — A Michigan judge has ordered beleaguered hip-hop mogul Sean “P. Diddy” Combs to pay out a $100 million judgment to a man currently in prison who claimed Combs drugged and sexually assaulted him back in 1997.

Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith, 51, was awarded the amount by a Lenawee County Circuit Court Judge in a default judgment Monday after Combs failed to appear in court.

Court documents obtained by CBS Detroit show Cardello-Smith claimed the incident happened while he was a bartender at a Detroit-area restaurant. He claims Combs invited him to an afterparty, where he claims he was urged to engage in sexual activity with multiple women.

Cardello-Smith then claimed that he passed out after drinking a glass of alcohol handed to him by Combs. The court document says Cardello-Smith claimed he later woke up to see Combs having sex with a woman, and telling Cardello-Smith, “I did this to you too.”

Cardello-Smith is currently incarcerated, and his criminal record includes a number of convictions for criminal sexual conduct and kidnapping, which Combs’ lawyers mentioned when responding to the Monday judgment.

“This man is a convicted felon and sexual predator, who has been sentenced on 14 counts of sexual assault and kidnapping over the last 26 years,” Marc Agnifilo, attorney for Sean Diddy Combs, told CBS News. “His resume now includes committing a fraud on the court from prison, as Mr. Combs has never heard of him let alone been served with any lawsuit. Mr. Combs looks forward to having this judgment swiftly dismissed.”

In recent months, Combs has faced lawsuits from multiple women accusing him of sexual assault and abuse, all of which Combs denies. A lawsuit from the R&B singer Cassie, alleging rape and physical abuse during their relationship, was also settled last year. In addition to Cardello-Smith’s claims, another man has also accused Combs of sexual misconduct, which his legal representative called “pure fiction.”

More recently, New York City Mayor Eric Adams requested Combs return the key to the city, which he was given in a Times Square ceremony in September 2023, coinciding with the release of the artist’s album “The Love Album: Off The Grid.”

Combs rose to fame in the late ’90s as a producer and performer behind such Billboard-charting hits as “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems,” “Bad Boy for Life” and “I’ll Be Missing You.”

Katie Houlis

contributed to this report.

Eric Henderson

Eric Henderson is Managing Editor, Midwest for CBSNews.com. He has won three Emmy Awards, an Eric Sevareid Award and two Edward R. Murrow Awards.

Science & Environment

Actors and directors in India’s Malayalam movie industry face…

30 August 2024
by admin

New Delhi — Police in India’s southern state of Kerala have opened investigations into allegations of rape against several popular movie stars from the region’s Malayalam language film industry. Cases have been registered against some of the industry’s biggest names after female actors started speaking out in a new manifestation of the MeToo movement triggered by a damning government report that revealed a culture of sexual exploitation in Kerala’s entertainment industry.

The sexual assault allegations have rocked the south Indian film business — which is separate from the Mumbai-based, Hindi-language film industry known as Bollywood — amid a wave of national outrage over the brutal rape and murder of a female doctor in the eastern city of Kolkata.

Kerala police have opened at least 10 formal investigations into alleged sexual misconduct, ranging from reports of rape to harrassment, against members of Kerala’s film industry, including directors Vineeth (who uses only one name), Ranjith Balakrishnan and VK Prakash, and popular actors Siddique and Jayasurya (who also use only one name), Edavela Babu, Maniyanpillai Raju and actor-politician M Mukesh.

INDIA-CINEMA-ASSAULT-WOMEN — Indian National Congress (INC) party workers wear masks of celebrities from the country’s Kerala-based Malayalam-language movie industry during a protest against the government’s actions over alleged sexual allegations within the industry, in Kochi, India, Aug. 30, 2024.

ARUN CHANDRABOSE/AFP/Getty

Producer Noble Jacob and online movie reviewers Alain Jose and Santhosh Varkey have also been named among those under investigation over the accusations received by the Kerala police.

The cases were filed on the basis of 16 complaints received by the police so far, the force said Thursday. Kerala Police Inspector General G Sparjan Kumar, who heads the Special Investigation Team formed to probe the allegations, said a separate team would investigate each complaint.

According to the case registered against director Vineeth, he stands accused of raping an actor whom he’d promised a role in a movie. The alleged rape is said to have taken place in April at the female actor’s house.

Actor Jayasurya has been accused of groping a coworker on the set of a movie in 2008.

Neither Vineeth nor Jayasurya have spoken publicly about the allegations.

Siddique, who has been accused of raping an actress at a hotel in 2016, stepped down Sunday from his role as the General Secretary of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists.

Director Ranjith has been accused by a female actor of sexual misconduct. He stepped down on Sunday from his role as the chairman of the Malayalam industry’s Kerala State Chalachitra Academy.

Both Siddique and Ranjith have denied the allegations against them.

A female actor accused actor-politician M Mukesh of forcibly entering her hotel room and raping her in 2013. The woman has filed sexual abuse complaints against Jayasurya, Maniyanpilla Raju and Edavela Babu, as well. Mukesh has called the case a bid to blackmail him and said he will take legal action against the accuser.

The allegations of rape and sexual exploitation in Kerala’s movie industry started surfacing after the state’s High Court ordered the release of a formal report carried out on behalf of state authorities.

The Justice Hema Committee Report was authored five years ago by a panel formed to examine women’s safety issues in the film industry, following the abduction and sexual assault of a leading female actor in February 2017. It was only released weeks ago upon the court’s order.

The 290-page report, parts of which were redacted to conceal the identities of survivors and those accused of crimes, called the Malyalam-language film industry “a mafia of powerful men” where sexual harassment of female artists was “rampant… unchecked and uncontrolled”.

“Many in the industry are made to believe that all women in the industry get into the industry or are retained only because they have sex with men in the industry,” the report says. “Men in the industry make open demands for sex without any qualms as if it’s their birthright. Women are left with very little options but to oblige — or reject at the cost of their long-awaited dream of pursuing cinema as their profession.”

“The experiences of many women are really shocking and of such gravity that they have not disclosed the details even to their close family members,” the report said.

Science & Environment

Sean

22 May 2024
by admin

Sean “Diddy” Combs’ troubles continued Tuesday as a lawsuit filed in New York federal court accused the hip-hop mogul of drugging and sexually assaulting a model in 2003.

The lawsuit was filed by Crystal McKinney under the NYC Gender Motivated Violence Act, which allows victims of violence committed on the basis of gender in the city to sue their abusers, regardless of when the abuse took place. The window for filing lawsuits under that act expires in 2025.

McKinney is also suing Combs’ record label, Bad Boy Entertainment, his label’s distributor, Universal Music Group, and Combs’ fashion brand, Sean John Clothing.

According to the suit, then 22-year-old McKinney, who was a rising fashion model, was introduced to Combs by an unnamed fashion designer in 2003. The suit alleges the designer dressed and styled McKinney “to ensure Combs found her attractive” before taking her to meet Combs at Cipriani Downtown, a New York City restaurant.

According to the lawsuit, Combs made a number of flirtatious and sexually suggestive remarks about McKinney’s appearance in front of the other dinner guests, including the designer. Later that night, Combs allegedly invited McKinney to his recording studio, where he was drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana with several male companions, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit says that Comb passed McKinney a joint, saying, “You’ve never had weed like this before,” which McKinney interpreted to mean the marijuana was laced with some other drug.

“Although plaintiff insisted that she had enough after that, Combs pressured her to imbibe more alcohol and marijuana by telling her that she was acting too uptight,” the lawsuit reads.

After McKinney became “very intoxicated,” the lawsuit claims, Combs led her into the bathroom and forced her to perform oral sex on him. Afterward, she alleges she lost consciousness and woke up in a cab.

CBS News has reached out to Combs’ representatives for comment. Universal Music Group declined to comment “pending lawyers’ review of the lawsuit.”

US-ENTERTAINMENT-MUSIC-JUSTICE-DIDDY — A Homeland Security Ivestigations vehicle is seen outside the home of Sean “Diddy” Combs in Los Angeles on March 25, 2024.

DAVID SWANSON/AFP via Getty Images

McKinney claims her modeling opportunities disappeared after the alleged incident because Combs had her “‘blackballed’ in the industry and utilized his significant influence to impede [her] career growth.” According to the suit, in the years following the alleged incident, McKinney became anxious, depressed and addicted to drugs and alcohol, and she attempted suicide around 2004.

The lawsuit comes on the heels of a security video aired by CNN on Friday that allegedly shows Combs attacking singer Cassie in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016. Combs on Sunday publicly apologized for the incident, saying his behavior was “inexcusable,” and that he takes “full responsibility” for his actions.

Earlier this month, Combs asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that he and two co-defendants raped a 17-year-old girl in a New York recording studio in 2003, saying it was a “false and hideous claim” that was filed too late under the law.

In March, Combs’ homes in Los Angeles and Miami were raided by Homeland Security Investigations agents and other law enforcement officers due to a possible ongoing sex trafficking investigation, U.S. officials said at the time.

Other accusations against the music mogul include those made by two women in November last year, one week after he settled a separate lawsuit with the singer Cassie that contained allegations of rape and physical abuse. The women’s lawsuits were filed on the eve of the expiration of the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law permitting victims of sexual abuse a one-year window to file civil action regardless of the statute of limitations.

In February, a male music producer also filed a federal lawsuit against Combs accusing him of sexual misconduct.

S. Dev

S. Dev is a news editor for CBSNews.com.

Science & Environment

How Playboy cut ties with Hugh Hefner to create…

11 April 2023
by admin

Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writers. CNN is showcasing the work of The Conversation, a collaboration between journalists and academics to provide news analysis and commentary. The content is produced solely by The Conversation.

The Conversation
—

Hugh Hefner launched Playboy Magazine 70 years ago this year. The first issue included a nude photograph of Marilyn Monroe, which he had purchased and published without her knowledge or consent.

Hefner went on to build the Playboy brand off the backs of the countless women featured in its pages, whose beauty and performance of heightened feminine sexuality have entertained its readers for generations.

Approaching its 70th anniversary in December, Playboy has radically shifted. With the magazine no longer in publication, the Playboy Mansion sold to a developer and London’s last remaining Playboy Club closing in 2021, what is the future for Playboy? The brand is changing to keep up with the post-#MeToo world.

Hefner passed away one month before allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein surfaced in 2017 giving momentum to the #MeToo movement (which saw survivors of sexual assault and harassment speak out against their abusers).

In recent years, many have re-evaluated Hefner’s legacy and relationships with women. The 2022 docuseries “The Secrets of Playboy” (which aired on Channel 4 in the UK) detailed sexual misconduct accusations against Hefner from several ex-girlfriends, including model Sondra Theodore and TV personality Holly Madison.

Hefner and Playboy’s relationship with women has been complicated. Playboy was an early supporter of abortion rights, helped fund the first rape kit and was at times an early proponent of inclusivity (for example featuring transgender model, Caroline “Tula” Cossey, in its June 1981 issue). But most women featured in Playboy have fit within a narrow beauty standard — thin, white, able-bodied and blonde.

Meanwhile Hefner’s personal relationship with his much younger girlfriends reportedly followed patterns of control and emotional abuse. Ex-girlfriend Holly Madison described Hefner as treating her “like a glorified pet” in her 2015 memoir, “Down the Rabbit Hole.”

Hefner’s passing meant he evaded reckoning with the #MeToo movement. Playboy, however, responded, releasing a statement in which it affirmed support for the women featured in “The Secrets of Playboy” and called Hefner’s actions “abhorrent.”

The statement declared that the brand was no longer affiliated with the Hefner family and would be focusing on aspects of the company’s legacy that align with values of sex positivity and free expression.

Today, Playboy is a very different company from the one Hefner launched nearly 70 years ago. Roughly 80% of Playboy staff identify as women, according the company, and its motto has changed from “Entertainment for Men” to “Pleasure for All.” Shares in the company are publicly traded and 40% of its board and management are women.

The company has also moved towards more creator-led content through its app, Playboy Centerfold. Similar to subscription content service OnlyFans, Playboy Centerfold allows subscribers to view content from and interact with its creators, which it call “bunnies.”

On the app, creators — or bunnies — are able portray their own bodies however they wish, putting the power back in their hands. Perhaps Playboy’s future is no longer in serving the male gaze, but instead the very audience Hefner dismissed in his first letter from the editor:

“If you’re a man between the ages of 18 and 80 Playboy is meant for you … If you’re somebody’s sister, wife or mother-in-law and picked us up by mistake, please pass us along to the man in your life and get back to your Ladies Home Companion.”

The stars of Playboy’s mid-2000s reality series, Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt, are also enjoying a resurgence among fans.

“The Girls Next Door” launched in 2004. The show focused on the lives of Hefner’s three girlfriends, Madison, Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson. It became E’s best performing show and cultivated a new female audience for Playboy.

“The Girls Next Door” was a story of complicated empowerment despite patriarchal interference. Its three female protagonists went from being known solely as some of Hefner’s many blonde girlfriends, to celebrities in their own right.

They each ultimately broke up with Hefner, leaving the Mansion and going on to lead successful careers.

The show’s depiction of Madison, Marquardt and Wilkinson as empowered, fun-loving and complex individuals, who found joy and agency through expressing their sexuality was perhaps what drew so many female fans to the show. However, amid the girls’ fight for agency, Hefner retaliated.

The series shows that he maintained final say in every Playboy photograph of the girls, as well as imposing strict curfews and spending allowances.

In Madison and Wilkinson’s memoirs, “Down the Rabbit Hole,” and “Sliding into Home,” they claim that production consistently undermined them. They refused to pay them for the first season, didn’t credit them until season four and aired their uncensored nude bodies in foreign broadcasts and DVD releases without consent.

Fan interest in “The Girls Next Door” remains strong. In August 2022 Madison and Marquardt launched their podcast “Girls Next Level,” where they interview previous playmates and interact with fans. They also recap episodes from their own points of view, unpacking their experiences of working on the show.

Having reached 10 million downloads as of February 2023, the success of the podcast — 14 years after the last episode of “The Girls Next Door” — speaks to the cultural legacy of the Playboy brand. It also shows that despite Hefner’s original editor’s note, Playboy resonates with some women.

Playboy is now in a post-Hefner era, where the imagery of women found within old issues of Playboy can serve as inspiration for others to enjoy their own sexuality. Whatever the future has for the company, the concept of Playboy has become public property — be that in the appearance of Playboy bunny costumes each Halloween, the popularity of cheeky Playboy logo tattoos or branded lingerie and clothing.

In a post-#MeToo era, the women of Playboy are speaking up and taking over. With the mansion gates closed, the bunnies are finally reclaiming the brand as their own.

Top Image: Hugh Hefner with Playboy “bunnies” in London in 1966.

Science & Environment

Brazilian soccer star Dani Alves under investigation for alleged…

11 January 2023
by admin

CNN
—

Brazilian football player Dani Alves is under investigation for an alleged sexual assault that took place in Barcelona last month, the Catalonia Higher Court of Justice confirmed on Tuesday.

“Barcelona investigating magistrate’s court number 15 has opened proceedings for an alleged crime of sexual assault due to a complaint presented by a woman against a football player for events that allegedly occurred at a Barcelona nightclub this past month of December,” the court’s statement reads.

“The matter is in the investigative phase and at this time we do not have more information.”

A spokesperson for the court confirmed to CNN the allegations concern Dani Alves.

CNN reached out to Mexico’s UNAM, Alves’ current club, for comment from the team and player but did not immediately hear back. Alves denies any wrongdoing, per Reuters.

Alves is one of the most decorated football players of his generation, having won domestic titles in Spain, Italy and France. He also won three Champions League titles with Barcelona.

Alves won the Copa America with Brazil in 2007 and 2019. At 39 years old, he became Brazil’s oldest player to feature at the World Cup while appearing for the national team in Qatar when his team played Cameroon.

Science & Environment

Patrice Evra: Former France star opens up about sexual…

22 June 2022
by admin

Patrice Evra: Former France star opens up about sexual abuse

Former Manchester United and France star Patrice Evra says he wants to use his platform to tackle violence against children after detailing the sexual abuse he says he received as a teenager.