BUCHAREST, Jan 25 (Reuters) – Divisive internet personality Andrew Tate said on Wednesday there was no justice in Romania and that the case file against him in a criminal investigation for alleged human trafficking and rape was empty.
Tate, his brother Tristan and two Romanian female suspects have been in police custody since Dec. 29 pending an ongoing criminal investigation on charges of forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women, accusations they deny.
On Thursday, a Romanian court extended their detention until Feb. 27. Prosecutors have said the Tate brothers recruited their victims by seducing them and falsely claiming to want a relationship or marriage.
The victims were then taken to properties on the outskirts of the capital Bucharest and through physical violence and mental intimidation were sexually exploited by being forced to produce pornographic content for social media sites that generated large financial gain, prosecutors said.
They also said Andrew Tate, a former professional kickboxer who holds U.S. and British nationality, raped one of the victims in March last year, which he has denied.
“They know we have done nothing wrong,” Tate told reporters as he was brought in for further questioning by anti-organised crime prosecutors, the first comments to the media since his arrest. “This file is completely empty. Of course it’s unjust, there is no justice in Romania unfortunately.”
Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan are escorted by police officers outside the headquarters of the Bucharest Court of Appeal, in Bucharest, Romania, January 10, 2023. Inquam Photos/Octav Ganea via REUTERS
Asked whether he has hurt women, Tate said: “Of course not.”
Earlier this month, Romanian authorities said they had seized goods and money worth 18 million lei ($3.99 million), including luxury cars and properties as a part of the investigation.
“There is no evidence against me,” Tristan Tate told reporters on Wednesday. “The authorities are planning to steal my cars and steal my money. That is why I am in jail.”
Prosecutors have said the seizure was meant to prevent the assets being concealed.
The Tates “are confident in the defence, they are confident in the evidence in their favour, they have given a detailed statement, they have collaborated (with authorities),” their lawyer Eugen Vidineac told reporters after the questioning.
“We believe the defence is starting to take shape.”
Andrew Tate gained mainstream notoriety for misogynistic remarks that got him banned from all major social media platforms, although his Twitter account was reinstated in November after Elon Musk acquired the social media network.
Reporting by Luiza Ilie and Octav Ganea; Editing by Nick Macfie and Daniel Wallis
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VATICAN CITY, Jan 13 (Reuters) – Australian Cardinal George Pell was lying in state on Friday, with funeral preparations overshadowed by revelations that he was the author of an anonymous memo that branded Pope Francis’ pontificate a catastrophe.
Pell’s closed dark brown wooden coffin was placed on the floor of the small church of St. Stephen of the Abyssinians, inside the Vatican walls just metres (yards) away from the Santa Marta residence where Francis lives.
Early on Friday, a reporter saw about 20 people kneeling in prayer in the church when it opened for 10 hours of lying in state.
Pell, 81, who spent more than a year in jail before being acquitted of sexual abuse allegations in his native Australia, died on Tuesday night in a Rome hospital of heart failure.
The small church, which is normally used for baptisms and weddings, is one of the oldest in the Vatican. Parts of it date back to the fifth century and it is one of the few structures not demolished to make way for the building of the current St. Peter’s Basilica, which began in the early 16th century.
His funeral is due to take place on Saturday just across the road in St. Peter’s.
In keeping with tradition for deceased cardinals, the Mass will be said by the dean of the College of Cardinals, currently Italian Giovanni Battista Re, and the pope will give the final blessing and commendation.
His surprise death of cardiac arrest during what was expected to be routine hip replacement surgery was followed by another shock the next day.
Last year, respected Italian journalist Sandro Magister, who has a long track record of receiving leaked Vatican documents, published an anonymous memo circulating in the Vatican condemning Pope Francis’ papacy as a “catastrophe”.
Magister disclosed on his widely read blog Settimo Cielo (Seventh Heaven) that it was Pell who wrote the memo and gave him permission to publish it under the pseudonym “Demos” – Greek for populace. It included what the author said should be the qualities of the next pope.
“Everyone here is talking about it,” said one Vatican official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The official said he did not doubt that Pell was the author but said the revelation should have been held back until after his funeral “out of respect for the dead”.
Father Joseph Hamilton, Pell’s personal secretary, declined to comment on Magister’s report and Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said he had no comment.
Pell will be buried in the crypt at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, where he served as archbishop, the Australian Church has announced.
Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Nick Macfie
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Dec 21 (Reuters) – Donald Trump plans to argue that a New York law allowing a writer to sue the former U.S. president over claims that he raped her decades ago is unconstitutional, according to a court filing.
Lawyers for Trump said in a filing made on Monday in Manhattan federal court that they would move to dismiss the lawsuit filed last month by E. Jean Carroll in part on grounds that the law spurred by the #MeToo movement is invalid.
Trump has denied Carroll’s claim that he raped her in a dressing room in a Bergdorf Goodman department store 27 years ago. The former Elle magazine columnist is suing Trump for defamation and battery under New York’s Adult Survivors Act.
The law created a one-year period that began last month when adult victims of alleged sexual abuse can file lawsuits that otherwise would have been barred because the cases were too old.
Trump’s lawyers in the filing said the law “is an improper ‘claim revival’ statute which violates the United States Constitution and the New York State Constitution.”
Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for Carroll, declined to comment.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in an order on Wednesday gave Trump until Feb. 23 to file a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
Carroll had sued Trump for defamation in 2019 for denying her allegations, and a trial is scheduled in that case for April.
Lawyers for Carroll have asked Kaplan to send the newer claims to trial at the same time, but Trump’s lawyers have said that would be improper.
Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by David Gregorio
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Dan Wiessner (@danwiessner) reports on labor and employment and immigration law, including litigation and policy making. He can be reached at daniel.wiessner@thomsonreuters.com.
NEW YORK, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Donald Trump was sued for defamation a second time on Thursday by a writer who accused the former U.S. president of lying by denying that he raped her 27 years ago.
In a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court, the former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll also accused Trump of battery in an alleged encounter at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan.
Carroll, 78, brought the battery claim under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, a new law giving sexual assault victims a one-year window to sue their alleged abusers, even if the abuse occurred long ago and statutes of limitations have expired.
Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, was the first day that accusers could sue.
Trump, 76, has denied raping Carroll or knowing her at the time, and said she was “not my type.”
His first denial in June 2019 prompted her to sue for defamation five months later.
He repeated the denial in an Oct. 12 post on his Truth Social account, calling Carroll’s claim a “hoax” and “lie,” prompting the new defamation claim.
Both sides are awaiting appeals court decisions addressing Trump’s argument that he was legally immune from Carroll’s first lawsuit because he had spoken in his capacity as president.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump announces that he will once again run for U.S. president in the 2024 U.S. presidential election during an event at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S. November 15, 2022. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo
If courts agreed that the U.S. government, which has sovereign immunity from defamation claims, could be substituted for Trump as a defendant, Carroll’s first lawsuit would fail.
That would likely not affect her second lawsuit because Trump is a private citizen, having left the White House in January 2021.
Carroll is seeking unspecified damages. To support her battery claim, she said Trump caused her lasting psychological harm, and left her unable to sustain a romantic relationship.
The first lawsuit is scheduled for trial on Feb. 6, 2023, before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan, but will likely be delayed because of the appeals process.
At a hearing on Tuesday, Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan asked for an April 10 trial covering both lawsuits, saying they have substantial overlap.
Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba sought a May 8 trial for only the first lawsuit. She also told the judge a longer delay made sense because Trump had not hired a lawyer for the second lawsuit.
“Your client in the present action, Ms. Habba, has known this was coming for months, and he would be well-advised to decide who is representing him in it,” the judge responded.
Judge Kaplan said he may decide early next week how to schedule both lawsuits.
Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Howard Goller and Nick Zieminski
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Sept 28 (Reuters) – Some major advertisers including Dyson, Mazda, Forbes and PBS Kids have suspended their marketing campaigns or removed their ads from parts of Twitter because their promotions appeared alongside tweets soliciting child pornography, the companies told Reuters.
DIRECTV and Thoughtworks also told Reuters late on Wednesday they have paused their advertising on Twitter.
Brands ranging from Walt Disney Co (DIS.N), NBCUniversal (CMCSA.O) and Coca-Cola Co (KO.N) to a children’s hospital were among more than 30 advertisers that appeared on the profile pages of Twitter accounts peddling links to the exploitative material, according to a Reuters review of accounts identified in new research about child sex abuse online from cybersecurity group Ghost Data.
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Some of tweets include key words related to “rape” and “teens,” and appeared alongside promoted tweets from corporate advertisers, the Reuters review found. In one example, a promoted tweet for shoe and accessories brand Cole Haan appeared next to a tweet in which a user said they were “trading teen/child” content.
“We’re horrified,” David Maddocks, brand president at Cole Haan, told Reuters after being notified that the company’s ads appeared alongside such tweets. “Either Twitter is going to fix this, or we’ll fix it by any means we can, which includes not buying Twitter ads.”
In another example, a user tweeted searching for content of “Yung girls ONLY, NO Boys,” which was immediately followed by a promoted tweet for Texas-based Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital. Scottish Rite did not return multiple requests for comment.
In a statement, Twitter spokesperson Celeste Carswell said the company “has zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation” and is investing more resources dedicated to child safety, including hiring for new positions to write policy and implement solutions.
She added that Twitter is working closely with its advertising clients and partners to investigate and take steps to prevent the situation from happening again.
Twitter’s challenges in identifying child abuse content were first reported in an investigation by tech news site The Verge in late August. The emerging pushback from advertisers that are critical to Twitter’s revenue stream is reported here by Reuters for the first time.
Like all social media platforms, Twitter bans depictions of child sexual exploitation, which are illegal in most countries. But it permits adult content generally and is home to a thriving exchange of pornographic imagery, which comprises about 13% of all content on Twitter, according to an internal company document seen by Reuters.
Twitter declined to comment on the volume of adult content on the platform.
Ghost Data identified the more than 500 accounts that openly shared or requested child sexual abuse material over a 20-day period this month. Twitter failed to remove more than 70% of the accounts during the study period, according to the group, which shared the findings exclusively with Reuters.
Reuters could not independently confirm the accuracy of Ghost Data’s finding in full, but reviewed dozens of accounts that remained online and were soliciting materials for “13+” and “young looking nudes.”
After Reuters shared a sample of 20 accounts with Twitter last Thursday, the company removed about 300 additional accounts from the network, but more than 100 others still remained on the site the following day, according to Ghost Data and a Reuters review.
Reuters then on Monday shared the full list of more than 500 accounts after it was furnished by Ghost Data, which Twitter reviewed and permanently suspended for violating its rules, said Twitter’s Carswell on Tuesday.
In an email to advertisers on Wednesday morning, ahead of the publication of this story, Twitter said it “discovered that ads were running within Profiles that were involved with publicly selling or soliciting child sexual abuse material.”
Andrea Stroppa, the founder of Ghost Data, said the study was an attempt to assess Twitter’s ability to remove the material. He said he personally funded the research after receiving a tip about the topic.
Twitter’s transparency reports on its website show it suspended more than 1 million accounts last year for child sexual exploitation.
It made about 87,000 reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a government-funded non-profit that facilitates information sharing with law enforcement, according to that organization’s annual report.
“Twitter needs to fix this problem ASAP, and until they do, we are going to cease any further paid activity on Twitter,” said a spokesperson for Forbes.
“There is no place for this type of content online,” a spokesperson for carmaker Mazda USA said in a statement to Reuters, adding that in response, the company is now prohibiting its ads from appearing on Twitter profile pages.
A Disney spokesperson called the content “reprehensible” and said they are “doubling-down on our efforts to ensure that the digital platforms on which we advertise, and the media buyers we use, strengthen their efforts to prevent such errors from recurring.”
A spokesperson for Coca-Cola, which had a promoted tweet appear on an account tracked by the researchers, said it did not condone the material being associated with its brand and said “any breach of these standards is unacceptable and taken very seriously.”
NBCUniversal said it has asked Twitter to remove the ads associated with the inappropriate content.
CODE WORDS
Twitter is hardly alone in grappling with moderation failures related to child safety online. Child welfare advocates say the number of known child sexual abuse images has soared from thousands to tens of millions in recent years, as predators have used social networks including Meta’s Facebook and Instagram to groom victims and exchange explicit images.
For the accounts identified by Ghost Data, nearly all the traders of child sexual abuse material marketed the materials on Twitter, then instructed buyers to reach them on messaging services such as Discord and Telegram in order to complete payment and receive the files, which were stored on cloud storage services like New Zealand-based Mega and U.S.-based Dropbox, according to the group’s report.
A Discord spokesperson said the company had banned one server and one user for violating its rules against sharing links or content that sexualize children.
Mega said a link referenced in the Ghost Data report was created in early August and soon after deleted by the user, which it declined to identify. Mega said it permanently closed the user’s account two days later.
Dropbox and Telegram said they use a variety of tools to moderate content but did not provide additional detail on how they would respond to the report.
Still the reaction from advertisers poses a risk to Twitter’s business, which earns more than 90% of its revenue by selling digital advertising placements to brands seeking to market products to the service’s 237 million daily active users.
Twitter is also battling in court Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk, who is attempting to back out of a $44 billion deal to buy the social media company over complaints about the prevalence of spam accounts and its impact on the business.
A team of Twitter employees concluded in a report dated February 2021 that the company needed more investment to identify and remove child exploitation material at scale, noting the company had a backlog of cases to review for possible reporting to law enforcement.
“While the amount of (child sexual exploitation content) has grown exponentially, Twitter’s investment in technologies to detect and manage the growth has not,” according to the report, which was prepared by an internal team to provide an overview about the state of child exploitation material on Twitter and receive legal advice on the proposed strategies.
“Recent reports about Twitter provide an outdated, moment in time glance at just one aspect of our work in this space, and is not an accurate reflection of where we are today,” Carswell said.
The traffickers often use code words such as “cp” for child pornography and are “intentionally as vague as possible,” to avoid detection, according to the internal documents. The more that Twitter cracks down on certain keywords, the more that users are nudged to use obfuscated text, which “tend to be harder for (Twitter) to automate against,” the documents said.
Ghost Data’s Stroppa said that such tricks would complicate efforts to hunt down the materials, but noted that his small team of five researchers and no access to Twitter’s internal resources was able to find hundreds of accounts within 20 days.
Twitter did not respond to a request for further comment.
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Reporting by Sheila Dang in New York and Katie Paul in Palo Alto; Additional reporting by Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles; Editing by Kenneth Li and Edward Tobin
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Pope Francis talks with Cardinal Angelo Sodano as they arrive to attend a consistory at the Vatican February 13, 2015. REUTERS/Tony Gentile
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VATICAN CITY, May 28 (Reuters) – Cardinal Angelo Sodano, a controversial Vatican power broker for more than a quarter of a century who was accused of covering up one of the Catholic Church’s most notorious sex abusers, has died at the age of 94.
Sodano, who had been ill for some time and died on Friday night, was secretary of state under two popes — John Paul II and Benedict XVI — holding the number two post in the Vatican hierarchy for 16 years between 1990 and 2006.
It was widely believed that Sodano, together with John Paul’s secretary, then-Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, ran the Church in the final years of the late pope’s life as his health deteriorated from Parkinson’s and other illnesses. John Paul died in 2005.
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In a series of exposes in the National Catholic Reporter in 2010, author Jason Berry, a leading expert on the Church’s sex abuse crisis, wrote how Sodano blocked the Vatican from investigating Father Marcial Maciel, disgraced founder of the Legion of Christ religious order.
After John Paul’s death, Pope Benedict ramped up investigations of Maciel and removed him in 2006, when the Vatican acknowledged that allegations it had been brushed aside for decades were true.
The cult-like Legion of Christ order, whose rules forbade criticizing its founder or questioning his motives, later acknowledged that Maciel, who died in 2008, lived a double life as a paedophile, womanizer and drug addict.
Sodano several times denied allegations that he was aware of Maciel’s double life and that he had covered up for him. Maciel, a conservative seen as a bulwark against liberalism in the Church, was known to have made generous financial gifts to the Vatican.
In 2010, four years after Pope Benedict replaced Sodano as secretary of state, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna accused Sodano of having blocked a full-scale investigation of former Austrian Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer.
Groer stepped down as archbishop of Vienna in 1995 after allegations that he had sexually abused young seminarians in the past. He died in 2003 never admitting guilt or facing charges.
Sodano also denied those accusations.
In 2010, victims of clergy sexual abuse condemned Sodano for saying at a public Easter address that abuse was mostly “petty gossip”.
Ordained a priest in 1950, Sodano joined the diplomatic service several years later. He served in Vatican embassies in Ecuador, Uruguay, Chile before being called back to the Vatican for senior administrative roles, including the number two spot.
Juan Carlos Cruz, a victim of clergy sexual abuse in his native Chile and now a member of a Vatican commission on preventing sexual abuse, wrote on Twitter that Sodano was “a man who inflicted so much damage on so many people and covered up years of abuse in Chile and the world”.
Sodano was Vatican ambassador in Chile between 1977-1988.
Vatican insiders have said that even after he retired, Sodano, who continued to live in the Vatican, exercised significant influence in the careers of Vatican officials for the remainder of Benedict’s pontificate. Benedict resigned in 2013.
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Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Ros Russell and Daniel Wallis
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Elon Musk talks at the Automotive World News Congress at the Renaissance Center in Detroit, Michigan, January 13, 2015. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook//File Photo
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OAKLAND, May 19 (Reuters) – Billionaire Elon Musk took to Twitter late on Thursday to denounce as “utterly untrue” claims in a news report that he had sexually harassed a flight attendant on a private jet in 2016.
Business Insider reported earlier on Thursday that Musk’s SpaceX paid $250,000 in 2018 to settle a sexual harassment claim from an unnamed private jet flight attendant who accused Musk of exposing himself to her.
The article quoted an anonymous person who said she was a friend of the flight attendant. The friend had provided a statement as part of the private settlement process, according to the article.
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“I have a challenge to this liar who claims their friend saw me ‘exposed’ – describe just one thing, anything at all (scars, tattoos, …) that isn’t known by the public. She won’t be able to do so, because it never happened,” Musk tweeted.
Reuters was not able to verify the Business Insider account. Musk and SpaceX did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on the Business Insider story or on Musk’s tweets.
In addition to allegedly exposing himself, Musk rubbed the flight attendant’s thigh and offered to buy her a horse if she would “do more” during an in-flight massage, Business Insider quoted the friend of the flight attendant as saying.
The flight attendant came to believe that her refusal to accept Musk’s proposal had hurt her opportunities to work at SpaceX and prompted her to hire a lawyer in 2018, according to Business Insider.
The rocket company made the settlement out of court and included a nondisclosure agreement which prevented the flight attendant from speaking about it, Business Insider said. The news site did not name the friend or the flight attendant.
Musk, who is also chief executive of Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) and is in the midst of a contentious effort to buy Twitter Inc (TWTR.N), said on Wednesday that he would vote Republican instead of Democrat, predicting a “dirty tricks campaign against me” would follow.
In the Business Insider article, Musk was quoted as saying the flight attendant’s story was a “politically motivated hit piece” and that there was “a lot more to this story.”
On Thursday evening, Musk first tweeted: “The attacks against me should be viewed through a political lens – this is their standard (despicable) playbook – but nothing will deter me from fighting for a good future and your right to free speech.” In the initial tweet, he did not specifically mention the allegations in the Business Insider article.
“And, for the record, those wild accusations are utterly untrue,” Musk added in another tweet.
He also tweeted that the article was meant to interfere with the Twitter acquisition.
Reuters could not immediately reach Business Insider for comment.
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Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin and Joey Roulette; Editing by Peter Henderson
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BOSTON, May 10 (Reuters) – Chef Mario Batali was acquitted on Tuesday of sexually assaulting a woman at a Boston bar in 2017 while posing with her for fan “selfie” photos, with the judge doubting the credibility of the accuser in the latest #MeToo era trial involving a U.S. celebrity accused of misconduct toward women.
In the non-jury trial, Judge James Stanton of Boston Municipal Court found Batali, 61, not guilty of a charge of indecent assault and battery brought in 2019.
Natali Tene, 32, had testified that Batali groped her breasts, buttocks and crotch area and forcibly kissed her while drunkenly posing for selfies with her at a bar near Boston’s Eataly, the Italian market and restaurant he at the time part owned.
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In announcing his verdict, the judge said he concluded that Tene had “significant credibility issues.”
Stanton said that while Batali “did not cover himself in glory on the night in question,” the photos themselves created reasonable doubt that an assault had occurred given the length of time Tene spent posing for them and the visible gaps between the two individuals.
“Pictures tell a thousands words,” Stanton said.
Batali showed no visible reaction as the verdict was announced and left the courtroom surrounded by reporters without making a comment. If convicted, Batali could have faced up to 2-1/2 years in jail and registration as a sex offender.
“While we’re disappointed in the judge’s verdict, my office will not waiver in our support for the victim in this case,” District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a statement. “It can be incredibly difficult for a victim to disclose a sexual assault.”
The trial was the only criminal case brought against Batali, once a fixture of the popular Food Network and a star of the ABC cooking and talk show “The Chew,” from among multiple #MeToo-era accusations made by women against the celebrity chef.
Celebrity chef Mario Batali listens during the second day of his trial on a criminal charge that he forcibly groped and kissed a woman at a restaurant in 2017, at Boston Municipal Court, in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., May 10, 2022. Stuart Cahill/Pool via REUTERS
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Tene said she was initially “embarrassed” about the incident and came forward only after the website Eater.com in December 2017 detailed allegations by four other women who said Batali had touched them inappropriately over at least two decades.
“I want to be able to take control of what happened and come forward, say my piece, get the truth out there – and everybody be accountable for their actions,” Tene testified.
Batali’s lawyer, Anthony Fuller, countered that the assault never occurred and said that Tene had lied to “cash in” through her pending civil lawsuit against the chef seeking more than $50,000 in damages.
“She lied for fun and she lied for money,” Fuller told the judge in closing arguments.
Stanton also cited Tene’s “egregious” misconduct in an unrelated assault case as contributing to his doubts about her credibility. When filling out a questionnaire for jury duty in that other case, rather than choose the option of identifying as a crime victim to get out of jury service, Tene falsely claimed to be “clairvoyant,” according to Batali’s lawyers.
After text messages that Batali’s lawyers obtained showed Tene discussed the case with a friend and conducted outside research in violation of court orders, prosecutors in nearby Middlesex County charged her with contempt. Tene resolved that case last week.
Soon after the website Eater.com report, Batali was fired from “The Chew” and later cut ties with restaurants including New York’s Babbo and Del Posto that he partly owned. He denied allegations of sexual assault but apologized for “deeply inappropriate” behavior.
Batali and his business partner in July agreed to pay $600,000 to at least 20 former employees to resolve claims by New York’s attorney general that their Manhattan restaurants were rife with sexual harassment. read more
The 2017 explosion of the #MeToo movement exposed patterns of sexual harassment or abuse of women in multiple spheres of American life. U.S. celebrities convicted in #MeToo-era criminal trials have included film producer Harvey Weinstein and comedian Bill Cosby, though Cosby’s conviction was overturned on appeal. read more
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Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Will Dunham
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Nate Raymond reports on the federal judiciary and litigation. He can be reached at nate.raymond@thomsonreuters.com.
April 13 (Reuters) – Cuba Gooding Jr. pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a misdemeanor count of forcibly touching a woman at a New York nightclub in 2018, as part of an agreement with prosecutors that spares the Oscar-winning actor any immediate jail time.
The guilty plea, in which Gooding also admitted in court to subjecting two other women to “non-consensual physical contact” in 2018 and 2019, came three years after he was arrested, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said in a statement.
Under the plea agreement, if the 54-year-old Gooding continues to undergo court-ordered counseling for six months, he can withdraw his misdemeanor plea and plead guilty to a lesser violation of harassment.
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If he fails to comply, he faces up to one year in jail.
The actor had been accused of violating three different women at various Manhattan night spots in 2018 and 2019. read more
He pleaded guilty to the most serious count charging him with forcibly kissing a woman at a nightclub in September 2018, a district attorney spokesperson said.
Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. appears for his arraignment in New York State Supreme Court in the Manhattan borough of New York, U.S., October 31, 2019. Alec Tabak/Pool via REUTERS
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“I apologize for ever making anybody feel inappropriately touched,” the New York Times quoted Gooding as saying in court when entering his guilty plea.
A representative and a lawyer for the actor could not immediately be reached for comment.
Gooding won the Academy Award as best supporting actor for his role in the 1996 romantic comedy “Jerry Maguire” as a volatile football player who becomes his sports agent’s only client, demanding that Tom Cruise “show me the money.”
Two decades later, Gooding portrayed O.J. Simpson in the television miniseries “The People v. O.J. Simpson.”
Hours after the plea, a Manhattan federal judge rejected Gooding’s bid to dismiss a $6 million civil lawsuit by a woman who said Gooding raped her twice in 2013 at the Mercer hotel in Manhattan’s SoHo district.
U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty said the woman didn’t take too long to sue by waiting until 2020 to invoke a New York City law protecting victims of gender-motivated violence.
Gooding said a different law with a one-year statute of limitations should have applied. He has denied his accuser’s allegations.
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Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel in sNew York; Editing by Steve Gorman, Richard Chang & Shri Navaratnam
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LONDON, Feb 3 (Reuters) – Four of Boris Johnson’s closest aides resigned on Thursday in a turbulent day for his government, as the British prime minister tried to reset his administration in the face of a series of scandals that have put his position in peril.
Johnson’s premiership is facing a growing crisis in the wake of anger over a series of alcohol-fuelled parties held at his Downing Street office and residence during coronavirus lockdowns which followed other missteps.
Angry lawmakers in his own Conservative Party, some of whom have already called for his resignation, have demanded an overhaul of his Downing Street operation if he is to remain in power.
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On Thursday, three of his top aides – Chief of Staff Dan Rosenfield, Principal Private Secretary Martin Reynolds, and Director of Communications Jack Doyle – all resigned in what some Conservative lawmakers (MPs) said looked like the start of a somewhat disorganised reset in Johnson’s administration.
However a fourth quit over a barb Johnson made at the leader of the main opposition Labour party, something for which his finance minister also criticised him.
“On Monday Boris Johnson promised MPs change. Tonight we see that change starting to happen and I welcome this quick action by the prime minister,” lawmaker Stuart Anderson said on Twitter, one of a number of Johnson supporters who took to social media to applaud the shake-up.
Johnson pledged to change his leadership style after a report by senior civil servant Sue Gray into the gatherings held at his Downing Street office and residence condemned “serious failures of leadership”. read more
Rosenfield, Reynolds and Doyle were directly linked to the gatherings – Reynolds was reported to have sent an email asking attendees to “bring your own booze” to one. read more
Johnson’s office said Rosenfield and Reynolds would remain in their posts for the time being.
Whether the clear out in Johnson’s top team will be enough to see off the crisis remains to be seen.
COST OF LIVING SQUEEZE
His personal ratings have plummeted and his party has fallen well behind Labour in opinion polls amid a series of scandals and gaffes. The police are still investigating 12 of the lockdown gatherings, and a more detailed report from Gray with potentially more damaging revelations could follow afterwards.
The political problems also come as British households face a cost of living squeeze with energy prices set to soar in April, while the Bank of England also raised interest rates again on Thursday. read more
Johnson, who won a massive majority for the Conservatives in a 2019 election, has also been condemned this week for accusing Labour leader Keir Starmer of failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile, one of Britain’s worst sex offenders, during his time as Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
The false claim, which Starmer said amounted to Johnson “parroting the conspiracy theories of violent fascists”, has angered not only opponents but also some within his own party.
Johnson has declined to apologise but did back down from the comments on Thursday, saying “a lot of people have got very hot under the collar”.
“I’m talking not about the leader of the opposition’s personal record when he was … DPP and I totally understand that he had nothing to do personally with those decisions.”
However it failed to satisfy Munira Mirza, his head of policy who had worked with him for 14 years, and prompted her to quit her job, and also provoked criticism from finance minister Rishi Sunak.
‘INAPPROPRIATE’
“This was not the usual cut and thrust of politics; it was an inappropriate and partisan reference to a horrendous case of child sex abuse,” The Spectator magazine cited Mirza as saying in a letter to Johnson.
“I hope you find it in yourself to apologise for a grave error of judgment made under huge pressure … It is not too late for you but, I’m sorry to say, it is too late for me.”
Asked whether the prime minister should have apologised, Sunak, who along with foreign minister Liz Truss is considered a leading contender to replace Johnson should he be forced out, said: “Being honest, I wouldn’t have said it, and I am glad the prime minister clarified what he said.”
Savile, a celebrated TV and radio host, was never prosecuted despite a number of police investigations. After his death in 2011 at age 84, it was revealed he had abused hundreds of victims.
Starmer, who headed the Crown Prosecution Service at a time when Savile was being investigated, had no direct involvement in the case, but did later apologise for the failings.
Johnson said he was sorry to lose Mirza but rejected her assessment that his Starmer comments were inappropriate.
“Well I don’t agree with that,” he told 5 News.
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Reporting by Elizabeth Piper, Alistair Smout, Michael Holden and Kylie MacLellan; Editing by William James, Angus MacSwan, Jonathan Oatis and Daniel Wallis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.