Issue 137 – November 2017

S.M.A.R.T (Stop Mind control And Ritual abuse Today)
P. O Box 1295
Easthampton, MA 01027-1295 USA
E-mail: SMARTNEWS@aol.com
Home page: https://ritualabuse.us/

Issue 137 – November 2017

The purpose of this newsletter is to help stop secretive organizations and groups from abusing others and to help those who allege they have been abused by such organizations and groups. This newsletter is not a substitute for other ways of recovering from ritual abuse. Readers should use caution while reading this newsletter. If necessary, make sure other support systems are available during and after reading this newsletter.

Important: The resources mentioned in this newsletter are for educational value only. Reading the books cited may or may not help your recovery process, so use caution when reading any book or contacting any resource mentioned in this newsletter. Some may have a religious or other agenda that may be separate from your own recovery process. Others may have valuable information on secretive organizations, but have triggers or be somewhat sympathetic to those organizations. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, the views expressed in this newsletter constitute expressions of opinion, and readers are cautioned to form their own opinions and draw their own conclusions by consulting a variety of sources, including this newsletter. Resources listed, quoted and individual articles, etc. and their writers do not necessarily support all or any of the views mentioned in this newsletter. Also, the views, facts and opinions mentioned in this newsletter are solely the opinions of the authors and are not necessarily the opinions of this newsletter or its editor.

Copyright 2017 – All rights reserved. No reproduction of any material without written permission from the editor and individual authors.

The Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Mind Control 2018 Conference
https://survivorship.org/ritual-abuse-and-mind-control-2018-conference/

When:
Regular Conference – Saturday and Sunday May 19 – 20, 2018
Clinician’s Conference – Friday May 18, 2018

Where:
Courtyard Marriot Long Beach Airport
Long Beach, CA

Please write conference2018@survivorship.org for more information


This issue has information on:
Hollywood Abuse Allegations, including Harvey Weinstein and Roman Polanski
Research by Ellen Lacter and Michael Salter
Former UK Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath
The Duggars
The Effects of Child Abuse
The Lost Children of Tuam

Resources and Information
Please note: Listing of these resources does not necessarily constitute our endorsement of them. They are for educational value only and some may be heavy for survivors to read. Some of the conferences listed may not necessarily be safe for all survivors. If you are a survivor of mind control and/or ritual abuse, S.M.A.R.T. recommends learning about mind control techniques before attending conferences or other survivor events. This article may be helpful: How to Avoid Being Mind Controlled at a Conference https://survivorship.org/survivorship-articles/how-to-avoid-being-mind-controlled-at-a-conference/

Muslim cult ‘trafficked woman for a decade, starting when she was 11, forcing her to work for free and subjecting her to emotional abuse’
Kendra Ross, 26, was a member of the United Nation of Islam (UNOI) from the age of 11 to 21
During that time, she says that the group forced her to work in UNOI restaurants without pay
After working full shifts, she was then expected to do all of the cooking and cleaning in the UNOI homes she lived in
She finally escaped the cult in 2012, and is now suing the group, now known as The Value Creators, for more than $450,000 in unpaid wages
Ross is also demanding more than $2 million in damages for her suffering and $5million in punitive damages
UNOI was founded in 1978 by Royall Jenkins, who claimed to have been abducted by ‘angels’ who instructed him on how to govern Earth
By Ashley Collman 19 September 2017
A young woman who escaped a Muslim cult is now suing the group, claiming she was physically and emotionally abused and made to work without wages for the decade that she was a follower.
Kendra Ross, 26, was just 11 years old when her mother joined the United Nation of Islam (UNOI) in 2002.

For the next 10 years, Ross says that she was sent to various cities throughout the country to work at restaurants owned and operated by the group. After a full day of work, she says she was then expected to go home and do all the cooking and cleaning in the group homes where she lived with other UNOI members. She says she never received a cent for her more than 40,000 hours of labor….
UNOI was founded in 1978 by Royall Jenkins, a former member of the Nation of Islam – itself an African-American-focused off-shoot of mainstream Islam.
Jenkins claimed that he had been abducted by ‘angels and/or scientists’ who took him via spaceship to another galaxy where he was given instructions on how to govern Earth.
‘UNOI doctrine focused primarily on the supremacy of Jenkins as God on Earth,’ the lawsuit claims.
One of the fundamental teachings was that the ‘black man’ is superior to the ‘white man’ and that men are superior to women….
He set up his religion in an impoverished area of Kansas City, Kansas, growing the religion to include several businesses that his followers worked at for free. Soon, he had branches of the religion in several other cities including Newark, New Jersey; the Harlem neighborhood of New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Cincinnati, Ohio; Dayton, Ohio; Temple Hills, Maryland; and Mobile, Alabama.
The communities are insular, with children being educated at UNOI schools, UNOI members living in group homes and working at UNOI owned and operated businesses without pay.
‘UNOI forced its members to work in various businesses it owned, including, but not limited to, restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets, gas stations, a sewing factory and a construction company,’ the lawsuit says.
‘As detailed below, many members (including Ms. Ross) worked every day of the week with no breaks. Many members worked at UNOI bakeries, restaurants, and school for eight hour shifts during the day and were expected to do additional work (cooking, cleaning, childcare) when they returned to the home where they were staying.’
While UNOI still exists, though under a new name (The Value Creators), many of these businesses have since closed – suggesting a plummeting in membership….

When she turned 12, Ross was taken out of her mother’s home and sent to live in a UNOI women’s home.
During this time, she became malnourished after being put on a strict diet of rice, beans, fruit and salad. This may have had to do with the fact that female members of the church were actually required to pay a fee if they exceeded the ‘ideal’ weight.
For the two years, Ross continued to work at the bakery and in the home.
At the age of 15, she was pulled out of school and never allowed to return again.
It was also at this time that Ross was first sent away to work….
She worked full time at a restaurant and then was forced to prepare food, cook and clean the house. Ross only spent about four to five months in Atlanta before she was sent back to Kansas City for not having the ‘proper attitude’.
When she got back to Kansas City, she was sent to live in a new UNOI home with a few younger women, men and couples. During her time in this home, she says she was ‘subjected to physical and emotional abuse by the caretaker of the home’.
Seven days a week, she would work a nine-hour shift at a UNOI diner, and then return home to ‘clean, cook and serve everyone until 8:30pm or 9pm each night’…. At the age of 20, she was married to another member of the group after a ‘psychic doctor’determined that they were compatible.
Once married, ‘Ms Ross was forced to do all the cooking, cleaning and housework in the home she shared with her UNOI husband’. Like many UNOI husbands, hers practiced polygamy.
In 2012, after just a year of marriage, Ross finally ‘gathered her courage and strength to escape from UNOI.
Since 2015, Ross has lived in a safe house to ‘avoid detection by her former traffickers’…..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4899614/Muslim-cult-trafficked-woman-decade-child-labor.html

I was raped by THOUSANDS of men from the age of just 14, says victim of Asian grooming gang
Caitlin Spencer – not her real name – was abused by an Asian grooming gang
The mother-of-two has written a book outlining the terrible abuse she suffered
She had seven abortions and two miscarriages and two daughters while abused
She claims that the gang who abused her is still at large
By Darren Boyle 20 September 2017
A victim of an Asian sex gang who was first raped aged just 14 claims she was abused by thousands of men over a 15-year period.
The victim has written a book outlining her terrible ordeal using the name Caitlin Spencer, where she reveals she was forced to have seven abortions, two miscarriages and two children by the men.
The book, Please, Let Me Go, said Caitlin was initially dismissed by police after making a complaint as being ‘a prostitute’….
Although she got the courage to complain to police no successful prosecution has ever been brought.
She said: ‘These men find it OK to rape non-Muslim girls. It’s a brutal cult and needs to be stopped. There are other young British girls who are still suffering today in the way I suffered at the hands of Muslim men, who should be behind bars.’
Commenting on the recent Newcastle grooming case, which did not involve her, where 17 men were convicted of grooming and raping 278 girls as young as 13, she told The Mirror: ‘There is no way the gangs are that small, I can guarantee that. I would be taken to places across the country. I cannot count how many men raped me, but I believe it runs into thousands.’….
Last month, one woman and 17 men were convicted of or admitted to charges including rape, supplying drugs and inciting prostitution in a series of trials at Newcastle Crown Court in northeast England.
The crimes follow a pattern that has become grimly familiar from cases across Britain in the last few years. The convicted men mostly come from South Asian Muslim backgrounds. Their victims – who were plied with drugs and alcohol before being abused at parties, in taxis or in back rooms – are mostly white.
The prosecution of child-grooming gangs in Rochdale, Rotherham, Oxford and now Newcastle has raised uncomfortable questions. Some allege that the crimes were long ignored by authorities afraid they would be branded racist or fearful the allegations might inflame ethnic tensions….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4905000/Asian-sex-gang-victim-writes-book-detailing-ordeal.html

Uniport finally speaks on identity of student who raped, killed 8-year-old girl for ritual
August 30, 2017 By John Owen Nwachukwu The University of Port Harcourt, Uniport, has identified a 200-level student, Ifeanyi Dike of the Department of Physics, as the suspect who abducted, raped, killed and dismembered his 8-year old niece, for ritual purposes.
Uniport made the confirmation via a statement issued on Wednesday by the school’s spokesperson, Dr. Williams Wodi, in Port Harcourt.
Dike was said to have abducted, raped, killed and dismembered the body of his 8-year-old niece, Chikamso Nmezuwuba, on Aug. 19 for ritual purposes.
Members of a vigilance group arrested the suspect in the Eliozu area in Port Harcourt, while he was on the way to dispose the body of Chikamso, after using other parts of her body for ritual.

Uniport finally speaks on identity of student who raped, killed 8-year-old girl for ritual

Child abuse affects brain wiring September 25, 2017 by Katherine Gombay
Researchers from the McGill Group for Suicide Studies, based at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute and McGill University’s Department of Psychiatry, have just published research in the American Journal of Psychiatry that suggests that the long-lasting effects of traumatic childhood experiences, like severe abuse, may be due to an impaired structure and functioning of cells in the anterior cingulate cortex. This is a part of the brain which plays an important role in the regulation of emotions and mood.
The researchers believe that these changes may contribute to the emergence of depressive disorders and suicidal behaviour….
Impaired neural connectivity may affect the regulation of emotions
The researchers discovered that the thickness of the myelin coating of a significant proportion of the nerve fibres was reduced ONLY in the brains of those who had suffered from child abuse. They also found underlying molecular alterations that selectively affect the cells that are responsible for myelin generation and maintenance. Finally, they found increases in the diameters of some of the largest axons among only this group and they speculate that together, these changes may alter functional coupling between the cingulate cortex and subcortical structures such as the amygdala and nucleus accumbens (areas of the brain linked respectively to emotional regulation and to reward and satisfaction) and contribute to altered emotional processing in people who have been abused during childhood.
The researchers conclude that adversity in early life may lastingly disrupt a range of neural functions in the anterior cingulate cortex….
More information: Pierre-Eric Lutz et al, Association of a History of Child Abuse With Impaired Myelination in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex: Convergent Epigenetic, Transcriptional, and Morphological Evidence, American Journal of Psychiatry (2017). DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2017.16111286
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-09-child-abuse-affects-brain-wiring.html

Association of a History of Child Abuse With Impaired Myelination in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex: Convergent Epigenetic, Transcriptional, and Morphological Evidence
Published online: July 28, 2017
Objective:
Child abuse has devastating and long-lasting consequences, considerably increasing the lifetime risk of negative mental health outcomes such as depression and suicide. Yet the neurobiological processes underlying this heightened vulnerability remain poorly understood. The authors investigated the hypothesis that epigenetic, transcriptomic, and cellular adaptations may occur in the anterior cingulate cortex as a function of child abuse….
Results:
A history of child abuse was associated with cell type–specific changes in DNA methylation of oligodendrocyte genes and a global impairment of the myelin-related transcriptional program. These effects were absent in the depressed suicide completers with no history of child abuse, and they were strongly correlated with myelin gene expression changes observed in the animal model. Furthermore, a selective and significant reduction in the thickness of myelin sheaths around small-diameter axons was observed in individuals with history of child abuse.
Conclusions:
The results suggest that child abuse, in part through epigenetic reprogramming of oligodendrocytes, may lastingly disrupt cortical myelination, a fundamental feature of cerebral connectivity. http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2017.16111286

Anthony Weiner gets 21 months in prison in sexting case By Ellie Kaufman and Jean Casarez, CNN
Mon September 25, 2017 New York (CNN) Former Rep. Anthony Weiner was sentenced Monday to 21 months in federal prison for sexting with a minor. In addition to the prison term, Weiner also was sentenced to three years of supervised release….
Weiner, the estranged husband of Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s former adviser, cried when the sentence was handed down….
The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Prosecutors recommended a sentence of 21 to 27 months in jail, arguing Weiner’s pattern of behavior “suggests a dangerous level of denial and lack of self-control warranting a meaningful incarceratory sentence.” Defense attorneys asked that Weiner receive probation….
Weiner’s probation terms require him to register as a sex offender. He must also participate in an outpatient sexual offender treatment that will be approved by the probation department.
The 15-year-old girl initially contacted Weiner through a direct message on Twitter in January 2016. Weiner and the girl continued to communicate on social media sites, including Facebook Messenger, Skype, Kik, Confide and Snapchat. The last three messaging applications delete images and messages after users view them.
Weiner asked the teen to “engage in sexually explicit conduct via Skype and Snapchat, where her body was on display, and where she was asked to sexually perform for him,” prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum. Weiner was fully aware of the girl’s age when they were communicating, prosecutors said….
He resigned from Congress after a lewd picture appeared on his Twitter page in June 2011. At first, he claimed his account had been hacked but later revealed that he had lied. Sexually charged, sometimes explicit, texts with women also emerged around this time.
Weiner insisted his marriage with Abedin was intact. She gave birth to a son, the couple’s only child, six months later.
In 2013, Weiner sought to revive his political career by running for mayor of New York. Two months after he announced his candidacy, screenshots surfaced of sexual conversations that Weiner had with a woman the previous year….
During the 2016 campaign, it was revealed that emails from Hillary Clinton containing classified information were forwarded by Abedin to a computer used by Weiner. A decision by former FBI Director James Comey to alert Congress just days before the election about his agency’s investigation into messages potentially related to Clinton’s personal server has been cited by Clinton as a key reason she lost the presidential race. Investigators ultimately determined the emails were mostly ones they had previously seen and Clinton was ultimately cleared by the FBI two days before the election…..
http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/25/politics/anthony-weiner-sentencing/index.html

Anthony Weiner sentenced to 21 months in federal prison By Matt Zapotosky September 25
Disgraced former U.S. congressman Anthony Weiner, whose exchange of illicit messages with a teenager wound up playing a role in the 2016 presidential election, was sentenced Monday to 21 months in prison, authorities said.
The penalty marks a stunning downfall for the New York Democrat whose propensity for sending lewd photos to women repeatedly derailed his career in politics, and — in a roundabout way — might also have affected Hillary Clinton’s bid to become president.
It was federal authorities’ investigation of Weiner that led them to emails of his wife, top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, and the discovery of those emails ultimately caused the FBI, as the election campaign drew to a close, to reopen the probe of Clinton’s use of a private email server….
Weiner, 53, pleaded guilty in May to transferring obscene material to a minor, stemming from interactions he had with a 15-year-old who later described the exchanges and released images to the Daily Mail….
Prosecutors said Weiner knew that the girl was a minor and nonetheless asked her to engage in explicit conduct, which is a crime. They asked for a sentence between 21 and 27 months, arguing that Weiner’s misdeeds were “serious and his demonstrated need for deterrence is real.”
“The defendant did far more than exchange typed words on a lifeless cellphone screen with a faceless stranger,” prosecutors wrote in sentencing papers. “With full knowledge that he was communicating with a real 15-year-old girl, the defendant asked her to engage in sexually explicit conduct via Skype and Snapchat, where her body was on display, and where she was asked to sexually perform for him.”….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/anthony-weiner-sentenced-to-21-months-in-federal-prison/2017/09/25/ad4165f4-a1f4-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.html

How Tom Petty Overcame an Abusive Childhood, Heartbreaking Divorce and Heroin Addiction to Find True Love By Melody Chiu October 2, 2017
….HIS DIFFICULT CHILDHOOD
Raised in Gainesville, Florida, Petty opened up about suffering abuse at the hands of his father in Petty: The Biography, written by his friend and fellow rocker Warren Zanes.
“When my father got home…he came in, took a belt and beat the living s— out of me. He beat me so bad that I was covered in raised welts, from my head to my toes. I mean, you can’t imagine someone hitting a child like that. My mother and grandmother laid me in my bed, stripped me and they took cotton and alcohol, cleaning these big welts all over my body.”
….Before he found fame, Petty married his longtime friend Jane Benyo in 1974. The duo’s 22-year marriage was filled with drama that stemmed from mental illness, drug use and the singer’s booming career.
Five years before they divorced, Petty told Rolling Stone he was still “very much in love” with Benyo. “There were times when we definitely were not getting along, when we fought like f—ing Apaches, you know. I’m lucky they still let me live in this neighborhood,” he told the outlet.
However, the couple could not work through their issues and split for good in 1996. “I was used to living in hell. My parents’ marriage was hell. I lived through being terribly abused as a kid, and then I found myself in an abusive marriage,” he recalled to Zanes.
HIS DESCENT INTO HEROIN ADDICTION
After Petty and Benyo divorced, the star reconnected with his future wife Dana York, whom he had met years earlier at a concert.
Though the couple fell in love, Petty was struggling with a secret heroin addiction….
“Using heroin went against my grain. I didn’t want to be enslaved to anything. So I was always trying to figure out how to do less, and then that wouldn’t work. Tried to go cold turkey, and that wouldn’t work. It’s an ugly f—ing thing.”….
http://people.com/music/tom-petty-cardiac-arrest-inside-his-difficult-life/

Sexual Abuse, Shame, Pseudo-Science: The Horrifying Truth About the Duggars’ Ministry
Oct 3, 2017 By Tiffany White
Everyone knows that the Duggars are extremely religious, but the strict rules that they follow don’t exactly align with mainstream Christianity — instead, they’re followers of teachings from the Institute in Basic Life Principles, a non-denominational religious organization. All the kids in the Duggar household (and the Bates) are homeschooled using the ATI curriculum created by IBLP. And sure, you’re probably staring at the screen right now thinking, “That’s a lot of acronyms. What do they have to do with anything?”, but both IBLP and ATI are controversial for many reasons. Its founder, Bill Gothard, was accused of allegedly sexually assaulting more than 30 women back in 2014. And many former members who grew up affiliated with IBLP, much like the Duggars, have spoken out against the organization, accusing it of silencing sexual abuse victims, brainwashing, and, well, being cult-like….
…former members who have since denounced ATI have spoken out about the teachings being weird, archaic, and illogical. According to Gawker, who managed to scan and upload pages out of an ATI workbook, the program teaches such asinine things as “semen causes cancer.” According to ATI, God uses cancer and other illnesses as curses on people who don’t follow his word, particularly when it comes to casual or premarital sex. However, once a woman has a husband, she’s magically “immune” from such diseases.
…Possibly the most upsetting thing about IBLP is how it counsels those who’ve been sexually abused. According to an actual page from an ATI handout, the institute advises counselors to ask victims, “Why did God let [the abuse] happen?” Some examples of answers to this question are “immodest dress,” “indecent exposure,” and “being evil with friends.” The handout goes on to advise victims to be fortunate of their abuse because they are now more “spiritually powerful.” The handout states, “If you had to choose…no physical abuse or more mighty in spirit, which would you choose?”
….But probably the darkest thing about ATI is its founder, Bill. In 2014, Bill was put on administrative leave after several female employees came forward and accused the founder of alleged sexual harassment. No criminal charges were filed. To date, 34 women and two men have accused him of alleged sexual harassment. Although he hasn’t been charged, several women have come forward to describe their experiences with Bill. A woman named “Leigh” (her name was changed to protect her identity) revealed in 2015 that, while working for Bill, she was forced to work grueling long hours without pay, while Bill would behave inappropriately with her, like “holding hands, playing footsies, stroking the hair and that type of unwanted physical affection.” Keep in mind, Bill was a man in his 70s and the woman quoted in the article was in her early 20s. She later went on to say that she and Bill visited the Duggars in 2006 and were “holding hands” in full view of the reality TV family who, according to her, said nothing.
According to the lawsuit filed by victims in 2014, Bill would also “select girls based on how they looked and tell them that it was God’s will for them to come work for him.”
Bill and IBLP still have close ties to the Duggars. Despite all the allegations of sexual harassment running amok around Bill, that didn’t stop the Duggars from throwing their support behind him. In 2012, when Anna Duggar’s sister Priscilla married David Waller, the ATI administrator, Bill was a wedding guest and even gave a 10-minute speech there. The whole thing was filmed for 19 Kids and Counting, but producers conveniently cut him out of the episode. As recently as this year, the Duggars were still attending and making speeches at ATI conferences. The family still hasn’t spoken out about Bill’s alleged abuses, nor have they responded to any critcs of the organization they’re so closely tied to…. http://www.intouchweekly.com/posts/duggar-ati-143260

Time bar on child abuse payouts lifted Scotland 10-3-17 A long-standing time bar which prevented victims of childhood abuse seeking civil legal action has been lifted.
Survivors of abuse which happened after 1964 previously only had a three-year window to pursue damages. New laws coming into force have now changed that. Community Safety Minister Annabelle Ewing said the time bar was “against the interests of justice for those who’d survived abuse”. The three-year limit has been removed by the Limitation (Childhood Abuse) Bill. The bill was unanimously approved, by a margin of 115 to zero, when MSPs voted in the Scottish Parliament in June. It allows the time bar to be lifted so long as the victim was a child under the age of 18 when they suffered sexual, physical or emotional abuse. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-41485863

Attacks on the credibility of abuse survivors are not justified by research
New science of trauma and memory has shown that the assertions of ‘false memory’ advocates are exaggerated
Michael Salter Sunday 1 October 2017
For a quarter of a century, the concept of “false memories” has provided a scientific fig leaf for sceptics of child sexual abuse allegations.
The “false memory” argument is deceptively simple: children and adults are prone to invent false memories of child sexual abuse that never occurred, particularly if encouraged by a therapist or some other authority figure.
So-called “recovered memories”, in which adults recall sexual abuse in childhood after a period of amnesia, have been a particular focus of disbelief.
Abuse inquiry reforms would put more paedophiles in jail, experts say
In fact, scientific studies find that children are far less suggestible than we have been led to believe. Brain imaging studies have identified the neurological mechanisms involved in the process of forgetting and then recalling sexual abuse as an adult.
Delayed disclosure and amnesia are now understood as normal coping mechanisms in response to abuse….
However, the new science of trauma and memory has shown that the assertions of “false memory” advocates were exaggerated.
Overwhelming experiences of abuse are encoded differently in the brain than other memories, and can produce amnesia and forgetting. My research has found that many perpetrators of severe abuse deliberately traumatise children in order to take advantage of this mechanism and prevent victims from disclosing.
It is vital that abused children and adults receive therapeutic support to address the psychological changes caused by sexual abuse, and their testimony should be taken seriously by law enforcement and the criminal courts.
Nonetheless, the imperative to deny and suppress these allegations is as strong as ever. Sexual abuse is a crime of the status quo. Offenders get away with abuse because they are camouflaged within their legitimate roles (as parents, relatives, friends, clergy, teachers and so on) in the lives of children.
As a result, allegations of sexual abuse are always a challenge to authority, revealing the weaknesses and failings of treasured social institutions.
In response, many are driven to reject the allegations outright, rather than examine the uncomfortable truths they reveal. For instance, church representatives have accused journalists of pursuing clergy abuse as part of a secular attack on Christianity….
In this light, attacks on the credibility of abuse survivors and advocates, and on the findings of the royal commission, need to be placed in political context. Despite their appeals to scientific expertise, such attacks are not justified by research on sexual abuse and traumatic memory; far from it.
Court system is unfair and traumatic for child sexual abuse victims, inquiry chair says
The royal commission has revealed the pervasiveness of sexual abuse in child-focused institutions. Recent prosecutions, and the brave testimony of survivors such as Cathy Kezelman, highlights how family dynamics are manipulated by perpetrators of incest, to the point where non-abused siblings may be entirely unaware of the plight of the victim and groomed to disbelieve them if they disclose….
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/02/attacks-on-the-credibility-of-abuse-survivors-are-not-justified-by-research

Child sexual abuse by Michael Salter
Salter, M. (2017) Child sexual abuse. In Dekeseredy, W. and Dragiewicz, M. Routledge Handbook of Critical Criminology, Routledge: London and New York
Despite its popularity amongst critical criminologists, the empirical basis of the moral panic account of sexual abuse has been shown to be substantially untrue. There is no evidence of an increase in reckless or baseless sexual abuse prosecutions during the 1990s, which was supposedly the height of the “moral panic” (Cross, Walsh, Simone, & Jones, 2003). Child sexual abuse, whether recent or historical, remains very difficult to prosecute, with low rates of reporting, high rates of attrition, and low rates of prosecution across jurisdictions (e.g. Connolly & Don Read, 2006; Fitzgerald, 2006; Kelly, Lovett, & Regan, 2005). In order to establish the narrative that innocent men have been the victims of an epidemic of false allegations, “moral panic” advocates have misrepresented child protection interventions and legal cases in significant ways (R. Cheit, 2014; Kitzinger, 2004; Michael Salter, 2016). This has included championing the cause of convicted sex offenders despite overwhelming evidence of guilt (R. Cheit, 2014; R. E. Cheit, 2001; Olio & Cornell, 1998)….
It is clear that “panic” is an insufficient descriptor of social responses to child sexual abuse, and captures only the most visible tabloid responses to child sex offending. While the “moral panic” literature advances a view of society united in condemnation, the social and legal response to child sexual abuse remains uncertain and contradictory. Most abused children do not disclose at the time because it is unsafe to do so, and those who disclose are routinely disbelieved and left unprotected (Swingle et al., 2016). When child or adult survivors of sexual abuse disclose, they can face a hostile response from families or communities who rally in support of the alleged or convicted offender (e.g. Adcock, 2016; Salter 2017a). Daly (2014) offers a compelling explanation of polarised responses to sexual violence, suggesting that “a minimization of sex offending and victimization, on one hand, and a demonization of certain groups as ‘sex offenders’, on the other hand” are “mutually reinforcing” (p 378 – 379)….
An over-reliance on moral panic theory can blind scholars to the power dynamics, vested interests and discursive struggles that shape public understanding and responses to child sexual abuse….. https://www.academia.edu/33470865/Child_sexual_abuse

Courtroom Antics Cast Doubt on Child Abuse Findings Ingrid Hein October 02, 2017
Flawed theories are being used in the courtroom to make the science that supports a diagnosis of physical child abuse look debatable, when, in fact, “there is no significant controversy about the diagnosis of physical abuse and abusive head trauma in clinical medicine,” according to an opinion piece published online recently in JAMA.
“When defense witnesses have decided to cite opinions that are not real diagnoses, or when they cherry pick information by looking at half a child’s findings and ignoring the other half, it’s upsetting,” said John Leventhal, MD, from the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, who cowrote the piece with George Edwards, MD, from the University of Texas in Austin.
“This is not how physicians work,” Dr Leventhal told Medscape Medical News. “We try to understand symptoms, look at physical findings, do laboratory tests, and come up with a specific scientific diagnosis.”
“The defense experts are seeing things that are not present on the x-rays. They are seeing things that aren’t there,” he said. “That’s not good medicine.”….
Dr Metz and his team use a multitiered approach to gather facts, which includes consulting with radiology, looking at lab work, examining the patient, and taking a history from family members….
Vigorous testing is the only way to rule out abuse or mimics and, in the current climate of controversy, child abuse specialists have become more cautious.
“We have doctors testing for things even when they are certain it’s abuse, just because they want to be sure the testing has been done in case it gets to court,” Dr Metz explained.
Improvements in radiology, genetic testing, and laboratory tests have made it easier to identify signs that a child might be suffering from a disease that causes bruising, fractures, or other physical injuries that present as abuse, said Cindy Christian, MD, professor of pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia….
“Sometimes injuries are not easily diagnosed,” she told Medscape Medical News. And “sometimes diseases look like an injury.”….
“I’ve seen radiologists and other physicians who think something is child abuse when it’s a disease, and I’ve seen cases where they think it’s a disease and its child abuse,” Dr Christian reported….
The systemic review questioning shaken baby syndrome “raises major medical concern,” and “may already have disrupted efforts to protect vulnerable children,” write Dawn Saunders, MD, from the Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Trust for Children, Institute of Child Health, in London, and her colleagues (Pediatr Radiol. 2017;47:1386-1389)….
Dr Metz compared the deliberation over shaken baby syndrome with the one on climate change.
“A large majority of the scientific community has an overwhelming opinion about the science, while a very few loud people object, raising doubts in people’s minds,” he explained.
It is helpful to have a debate that pushes science and looks at where science falls short, “but when the science is irrefutable, or well documented, the debate does it an injustice,” he said….
American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) 2017 National Conference and Exhibition: H2115 Section on Child Abuse and Neglect Program. Presented September 17, 2017. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/886422
Flawed Theories to Explain Child Physical Abuse What Are the Medical-Legal Consequences?
John M. Leventhal, MD1; George A. Edwards, MD2 JAMA. Published online September 18, 2017. doi:10.1001/jama.2017.11703
….Proponents of these flawed theories argue that alternative diagnoses can look just like physical child abuse. They argue that if an alternative diagnosis is possible then it is not possible to conclude that abuse occurred. If it is not possible to conclude that abuse occurred, then no crime has been committed and there is no need to provide child protection. Some have even suggested that the shaken baby syndrome does not exist, despite documented admissions of shaking by perpetrators of abusive head trauma whose victims died or sustained serious neurological injuries.4
Some of these proponents of flawed theories have written articles about abuse or abusive head trauma; however, these articles have included unproven hypotheses, case reports with omitted facts and misrepresentations, descriptions of conditions that are fallacious, and commentaries or letters without supporting evidence.2,3 Such publications have then been cited or used in court to assert that there is no evidence base to support the diagnoses of abuse and abusive head trauma.
….Physicians who care for injured children must continue to use a scientific approach and careful clinical judgment in diagnosing abuse because it is critically important to get the diagnosis right. The same scientific approach and careful clinical judgment should be used by those who have advanced scientifically unsupported explanations of the findings of abuse. Denying that abusive head trauma occurs, quoting publications that describe flawed theories as if they are scientifically supported, and using fabricated diagnoses are actions that have no place in science or medicine. Furthermore, these flawed theories have no place in law or journalism. Advocacy of theories based on misrepresentation, omission, or both makes a mockery of scientific reasoning and does a disservice to children, families, and justice.
Physicians, researchers, academic medical centers, journalists, and legal scholars have a responsibility to repudiate scientifically unsupported theories that falsely purport to explain child abuse and abusive head trauma. http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2654400

Late UK prime minister would have faced child sex abuse questioning By Sarah Ward, SWNS
October 5, 2017 Former UK prime minister Sir Edward Heath would have been quizzed by police over child sex allegations including the rape of an 11-year-old “rent boy,” an investigation revealed Thursday.
Wiltshire Police said the former MP – who allegedly took part in Satanic sex – would have been questioned under caution over five alleged attacks on children and two on adults.
The disturbing allegations – described as “chance” or “paid for sexual encounters” – span the 60s, 70s and 90s and took place in London, Kent, Sussex, Guernsey and Jersey.
Two of the alleged assaults took place in Wiltshire – where Heath had a mansion – including a “chance” attack on a 12, 13 or 14-year-old boy in private gardens.
In the most disturbing allegation, Heath allegedly raped an 11-year-old boy he paid to abuse in a home in London in 1961, while he was a cabinet member.
Some of the alleged assaults took place in public places or buildings – and one alleged attack on a boy took place in the company of another man. Another alleged attack on a 15-year-old boy in a public building in Guernsey took place while he was the leader of the Conservatives.
During the course of the investigation, six victims told police Heath was involved in Satanic or ritual abuse.
Investigators defined it as “offenses committed using symbols, ceremonies or group activities that appeared to have a religious or supernatural meaning” – but said they found no evidence.
The seven total alleged attacks were reported to police between April 2015 and June 2016 – and were among 42 allegations of sex assaults made to police.
The findings were revealed Thursday by Wiltshire Police following a controversial two-year $1.9 million investigation….
Some 42 alleged victims reported abuse involving Heath – 26 named individuals, ten reports by a third party, three anonymous reports and three who later realized they were “genuinely mistaken.”
None of the seven allegations, which Heath would have been interviewed about, occurred while he was PM.
Among the 42 allegations was one from a rent boy working in a Salisbury brothel who claimed he was abused by the politician and three male sex workers.
Six victims claimed Heath was involved in Satanic or ritual abuse, but two died before Operation Conifer began.
“Following the investigation, no further corroborative evidence was found to support the disclosures that Heath was involved in ritual abuse,” the report said.
Allegations were also made that Heath was involved in murdering children aboard his yachts, but no evidence was discovered to suggest this happened, the report said.
Three victims made allegations of organized pedophile activity within military settings and two accused Heath of committing abuses in Wiltshire.
Police case papers from 1989 relating to a criminal investigation into two of the victims’ parents mentioned allegations made about Heath, the report said….
Sir Edward’s friends have previously accused police of a witch hunt. They insisted he could not have carried such crimes because he could not drive, was under 24-hour police guard and was asexual.  But the report revealed he owned two cars, was not watched around the clock and did have sexual relationships….
They will now be passed to the Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse.
http://nypost.com/2017/10/05/late-uk-prime-minister-would-have-faced-child-sex-abuse-questioning/

Roman Polanski under investigation by Swiss police over new rape allegations
A woman named Renate Langer interviewed by police says the film-maker raped her in the town of Gstaad when she was 15, in 1972
Agence France-Presse in Geneva
Tuesday 3 October 2017
Swiss police are investigating new rape allegations against Roman Polanski made by a woman who said the film-maker assaulted her in the town of Gstaad in 1972.
St Gallen’s police communications chief, Hanspeter Krüsi, confirmed the details of the allegations, first reported by the New York Times.
Krüsi told AFP that police interviewed Renate Langer on 26 September concerning accusations that Polanski raped her in Gstaad when she was 15.
Polanski in 1977 pleaded guilty in the United States to having unlawful sex with Samantha Geimer – aged 13 at the time – but fled the country before he could be sentenced. He remains a fugitive from the US justice system.
Langer is a 61-year-old former actress who was born in Munich, according to multiple media reports.
She is the fourth woman to publicly accuse Polanski of sexual assault.
In August, a woman identified only as Robin told a news conference in Los Angeles she was “sexually victimised” by the French-Polish film director when she was 16, in 1973….
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/oct/03/roman-polanski-under-investigation-by-swiss-police-over-new-allegations

Harvey Weinstein’s Army of Spies
The film executive hired private investigators, including ex-Mossad agents, to track actresses and journalists.
By Ronan Farrow November 6, 2017
In the fall of 2016, Harvey Weinstein set out to suppress allegations that he had sexually harassed or assaulted numerous women. He began to hire private security agencies to collect information on the women and the journalists trying to expose the allegations. According to dozens of pages of documents, and seven people directly involved in the effort, the firms that Weinstein hired included Kroll, which is one of the world’s largest corporate-intelligence companies, and Black Cube, an enterprise run largely by former officers of Mossad and other Israeli intelligence agencies. Black Cube, which has branches in Tel Aviv, London, and Paris, offers its clients the skills of operatives “highly experienced and trained in Israel’s elite military and governmental intelligence units,” according to its literature.
Two private investigators from Black Cube, using false identities, met with the actress Rose McGowan, who eventually publicly accused Weinstein of rape, to extract information from her. One of the investigators pretended to be a women’s-rights advocate and secretly recorded at least four meetings with McGowan. The same operative, using a different false identity and implying that she had an allegation against Weinstein, met twice with a journalist to find out which women were talking to the press. In other cases, journalists directed by Weinstein or the private investigators interviewed women and reported back the details.
The explicit goal of the investigations, laid out in one contract with Black Cube, signed in July, was to stop the publication of the abuse allegations against Weinstein that eventually emerged in the New York Times and The New Yorker. Over the course of a year, Weinstein had the agencies “target,” or collect information on, dozens of individuals, and compile psychological profiles that sometimes focussed on their personal or sexual histories. Weinstein monitored the progress of the investigations personally. He also enlisted former employees from his film enterprises to join in the effort, collecting names and placing calls that, according to some sources who received them, felt intimidating….
In a statement, Weinstein’s spokesperson, Sallie Hofmeister, said, “It is a fiction to suggest that any individuals were targeted or suppressed at any time.”….
The July agreement included several “success fees” if Black Cube met its goals. The firm would receive an additional three hundred thousand dollars if the agency “provides intelligence which will directly contribute to the efforts to completely stop the Article from being published at all in any shape or form.” Black Cube would also be paid fifty thousand dollars if it secured “the other half” of McGowan’s book “in readable book and legally admissible format.”….
Weinstein also enlisted other journalists to uncover information that he could use to undermine women with allegations. A December, 2016, e-mail exchange between Weinstein and Dylan Howard, the chief content officer of American Media Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer, shows that Howard shared with Weinstein material obtained by one of his reporters, as part of an effort to help Weinstein disprove McGowan’s allegation of rape. In one e-mail, Howard sent Weinstein a list of contacts. “Let’s discuss next steps on each,” he wrote. After Weinstein thanked him, Howard described a call that one of his reporters made to Elizabeth Avellan, the ex-wife of the director Robert Rodriguez, whom Rodriguez left to have a relationship with McGowan….
Other firms were also involved in assembling such profiles, including ones that focussed on factors that, in theory, might make women likely to speak out against sexual abuse. One of the other firm’s profiles was of Rosanna Arquette, an actress who later, in The New Yorker, accused Weinstein of sexual harassment. The file mentions Arquette’s friendship with McGowan, social-media posts about sexual abuse, and the fact that a family member had gone public with an allegation that she had been molested as a child…..
For years, Weinstein had used private security agencies to investigate reporters. In the early aughts, as the journalist David Carr, who died in 2015, worked on a report on Weinstein for New York, Weinstein assigned Kroll to dig up unflattering information about him, according to a source close to the matter. Carr’s widow, Jill Rooney Carr, told me that her husband believed that he was being surveilled, though he didn’t know by whom. “He thought he was being followed,” she recalled. In one document, Weinstein’s investigators wrote that Carr had learned of McGowan’s allegation in the course of his reporting. Carr “wrote a number of critical/unflattering articles about HW over the years,” the document says, “none of which touched on the topic of women (due to fear of HW’s retaliation, according to HW).”…. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/harvey-weinsteins-army-of-spies

Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades
By JODI KANTOR and MEGAN TWOHEY OCT. 5, 2017
Update: The Weinstein Company’s board has fired Harvey Weinstein after reports of sexual harassment complaints against him….
“There is a toxic environment for women at this company,” Ms. O’Connor said in the letter, addressed to several executives at the company run by Mr. Weinstein.
An investigation by The New York Times found previously undisclosed allegations against Mr. Weinstein stretching over nearly three decades, documented through interviews with current and former employees and film industry workers, as well as legal records, emails and internal documents from the businesses he has run, Miramax and the Weinstein Company.
During that time, after being confronted with allegations including sexual harassment and unwanted physical contact, Mr. Weinstein has reached at least eight settlements with women, according to two company officials speaking on the condition of anonymity. Among the recipients, The Times found, were a young assistant in New York in 1990, an actress in 1997, an assistant in London in 1998, an Italian model in 2015 and Ms. O’Connor shortly after, according to records and those familiar with the agreements.
In a statement to The Times on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Weinstein said: “I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it. Though I’m trying to do better, I know I have a long way to go.”
He added that he was working with therapists and planning to take a leave of absence to “deal with this issue head on.”….
Though Ms. O’Connor had been writing only about a two-year period, her memo echoed other women’s complaints. Mr. Weinstein required her to have casting discussions with aspiring actresses after they had private appointments in his hotel room, she said, her description matching those of other former employees. She suspected that she and other female Weinstein employees, she wrote, were being used to facilitate liaisons with “vulnerable women who hope he will get them work.”
The allegations piled up even as Mr. Weinstein helped define popular culture. He has collected six best-picture Oscars and turned out a number of touchstones, from the films “Sex, Lies, and Videotape,” “Pulp Fiction” and “Good Will Hunting” to the television show “Project Runway.” In public, he presents himself as a liberal lion, a champion of women and a winner of not just artistic but humanitarian awards….
In 2015, the year Ms. O’Connor wrote her memo, his company distributed “The Hunting Ground,” a documentary about campus sexual assault. A longtime Democratic donor, he hosted a fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton in his Manhattan home last year. He employed Malia Obama, the oldest daughter of former President Barack Obama, as an intern this year, and recently helped endow a faculty chair at Rutgers University in Gloria Steinem’s name. During the Sundance Film Festival in January, when Park City, Utah, held its version of nationwide women’s marches, Mr. Weinstein joined the parade….
Dozens of Mr. Weinstein’s former and current employees, from assistants to top executives, said they knew of inappropriate conduct while they worked for him. Only a handful said they ever confronted him.
Mr. Weinstein enforced a code of silence; employees of the Weinstein Company have contracts saying they will not criticize it or its leaders in a way that could harm its “business reputation” or “any employee’s personal reputation,” a recent document shows. And most of the women accepting payouts agreed to confidentiality clauses prohibiting them from speaking about the deals or the events that led to them.
Charles Harder, a lawyer representing Mr. Weinstein, said it was not unusual to enter into settlements to avoid lengthy and costly litigation. He added, “It’s not evidence of anything.”….
I am a professional and have tried to be professional. I am not treated that way however. I am sexualized and diminished.
— From Lauren O’Connor‘s memo
At Fox News, where the conservative icons Roger E. Ailes and Bill O’Reilly were accused of harassment, women have received payouts well into the millions of dollars. But most of the women involved in the Weinstein agreements collected between roughly $80,000 and $150,000, according to people familiar with the negotiations.
In the wake of Ms. O’Connor’s 2015 memo, some Weinstein Company board members and executives, including Mr. Weinstein’s brother and longtime partner, Bob, 62, were alarmed about the allegations, according to several people who spoke on the condition of anonymity. In the end, though, board members were assured there was no need to investigate. After reaching a settlement with Mr. Weinstein, Ms. O’Connor withdrew her complaint and thanked him for the career opportunity he had given her….
In interviews, eight women described varying behavior by Mr. Weinstein: appearing nearly or fully naked in front of them, requiring them to be present while he bathed or repeatedly asking for a massage or initiating one himself. The women, typically in their early or middle 20s and hoping to get a toehold in the film industry, said he could switch course quickly — meetings and clipboards one moment, intimate comments the next….
Most women who told The Times that they experienced misconduct by Mr. Weinstein had never met one another. They range in age from early 20s to late 40s and live in different cities. Some said they did not report the behavior because there were no witnesses and they feared retaliation by Mr. Weinstein. Others said they felt embarrassed. But most confided in co-workers….
https://www.nytimes.com/

2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html

From Aggressive Overtures to Sexual Assault: Harvey Weinstein’s Accusers Tell Their Stories
Multiple women share harrowing accounts of sexual assault and harassment by the film executive.
By Ronan Farrow October 10, 2017
In the course of a ten-month investigation, thirteen women interviewed said that, between the nineteen-nineties and 2015, Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted them….
Since the establishment of the first studios a century ago, there have been few movie executives as dominant, or as domineering, as Harvey Weinstein. As the co-founder of the production-and-distribution companies Miramax and the Weinstein Company, he helped to reinvent the model for independent films, with movies such as “Sex, Lies, and Videotape,” “The English Patient,” “Pulp Fiction,” “The Crying Game,” “Shakespeare in Love,” and “The King’s Speech.” Beyond Hollywood, he has exercised his influence as a prolific fund-raiser for Democratic Party candidates, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Weinstein combined a keen eye for promising scripts, directors, and actors with a bullying, even threatening, style of doing business, inspiring both fear and gratitude. His movies have earned more than three hundred Oscar nominations, and, at the annual awards ceremonies, he has been thanked more than almost anyone else in movie history, just after Steven Spielberg and right before God.
For more than twenty years, Weinstein has also been trailed by rumors of sexual harassment and assault. This has been an open secret to many in Hollywood and beyond, but previous attempts by many publications, including The New Yorker, to investigate and publish the story over the years fell short of the demands of journalistic evidence. Too few people were willing to speak, much less allow a reporter to use their names, and Weinstein and his associates used nondisclosure agreements, monetary payoffs, and legal threats to suppress these myriad stories. Asia Argento, an Italian film actress and director, told me that she did not speak out until now—Weinstein, she told me, forcibly performed oral sex on her—because she feared that Weinstein would “crush” her. “I know he has crushed a lot of people before,” Argento said. “That’s why this story—in my case, it’s twenty years old; some of them are older—has never come out.”
Last week, the New York Times, in a powerful report by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, revealed multiple allegations of sexual harassment against Weinstein, a story that led to the resignation of four members of his company’s all-male board, and to Weinstein’s firing from the company….
Three women—among them Argento and a former aspiring actress named Lucia Evans—told me that Weinstein raped them, allegations that include Weinstein forcibly performing or receiving oral sex and forcing vaginal sex. Four women said that they experienced unwanted touching that could be classified as an assault. In an audio recording captured during a New York Police Department sting operation in 2015 and made public here for the first time, Weinstein admits to groping a Filipina-Italian model named Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, describing it as behavior he is “used to.” Four of the women I interviewed cited encounters in which Weinstein exposed himself or masturbated in front of them….
Other employees described what was, in essence, a culture of complicity at Weinstein’s places of business, with numerous people throughout the companies fully aware of his behavior but either abetting it or looking the other way. Some employees said that they were enlisted in subterfuge to make the victims feel safe. A female executive with the company described how Weinstein assistants and others served as a “honeypot”—they would initially join a meeting, but then Weinstein would dismiss them, leaving him alone with the woman….
It’s likely that women have recently felt increasingly emboldened to talk about their experiences because of the way the world has changed regarding issues of sex and power. These disclosures follow in the wake of stories alleging sexual misconduct by public figures, including Bill O’Reilly, Roger Ailes, Bill Cosby, and Donald Trump. In October, 2016, a month before the election, a tape emerged of Trump telling a celebrity-news reporter, “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. . . . Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.” This past April, O’Reilly, a host at Fox News, was forced to resign after Fox was discovered to have paid five women millions of dollars in exchange for silence about their accusations of sexual harassment. Ailes, the former head of Fox News, resigned last July, after he was accused of sexual harassment. Cosby went on trial this summer, charged with drugging and sexually assaulting a woman. The trial ended with a hung jury….
None of the former executives or assistants I spoke to quit because of the misconduct, but many expressed guilt and regret about not having said or done more. They spoke about what they believed to be a culture of silence about sexual assault inside Miramax and the Weinstein Company and across the entertainment industry more broadly…..
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories

Top Actresses Who Have Accused Harvey Weinstein of Sexual Harassment
By JACEY FORTIN OCT. 10, 2017
Days after a series of sexual harassment allegations against the film producer Harvey Weinstein were made public in a report in The New York Times on Thursday, women are still coming forward to tell their stories.
Many of the allegations are remarkably similar. Actresses and other employees in Mr. Weinstein’s orbit described being invited to a hotel room, finding the producer in a bathrobe and being urged to exchange massages, have sex or watch him masturbate.
The New Yorker published a report on Tuesday detailing allegations of sexual assault, including rape. In total, more than 20 women have now reportedly accused Mr. Weinstein of assault or harassment. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Weinstein has denied engaging in nonconsensual sex.
Many of the reported encounters occurred in the 1990s and involved women in their 20s who were just beginning to make names for themselves. Their stories share a common thread: fear that reporting the inappropriate behavior of a titan of the film industry could backfire and destroy their career and reputation…. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/us/harvey-weinstein-accusations.html

The end of Harvey Weinstein and an industry that secretly loves its bullies
by Justin Chang October 17, 2017
The horrific allegations against Harvey Weinstein have summoned forth images that will play in our heads on a loop for days, months, maybe years. Those images — detailed with sickening exactitude in the pages of the New York Times and the New Yorker, and also in the harrowing personal testimonies that have emerged since — scarcely bear repeating here. But they are part of the reason why the courage of the women who have gone on the record so far can never be overstated.
I hope, but wouldn’t dare assume, that in sharing their stories, these survivors have begun to liberate themselves from the last vestige of Weinstein’s power to wound, humiliate and silence them. But their courage comes at a cost, as true courage always does. To reveal a history of sexual harassment and/or assault from one of the entertainment industry’s most powerful men is to relinquish one’s most private experiences to a public that salivates over every morsel of celebrity gossip, and that often responds to human pain with more cruelty than sympathy….
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-harvey-weinstein-critic-20171017-story.html

As Harvey Weinstein sex scandal grows, one accuser says his company was negligent
By Victoria Kim, Victoria Kim and Stephen Battaglio October 25, 2017
As the sex abuse scandal involving Harvey Weinstein expands daily, a lingering question is: What did his company know about his alleged history of mistreating women?
In the last two days, three more women have accused Weinstein of forced sex acts. Actress Natassia Malthe on Wednesday accused him of raping her at the Sanderson Hotel in London in February 2008. On Tuesday, actress Dominique Huett and former production assistant Mimi Haleyi came forward with additional assault allegations against Weinstein.
The board of directors at Weinstein Co. has said they are “shocked and dismayed” by the accusations of sexual assault and misconduct by the mini-studio’s co-founder. Weinstein’s brother, Bob, and an anonymous group of employees have said they were ignorant of their former co-chairman’s alleged conduct.
But Huett says the company knew about the executive’s bad behavior and failed to protect women who came into his orbit. Her lawsuit, the first civil case against the company since the allegations went public, said the studio and its board were “aware of Weinstein’s pattern of using his power to coerce” actresses into sexual acts.
Huett alleged in her lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, that Weinstein lured her into a Beverly Hills hotel for a meeting about her career in 2010 and made unwanted sexual contact. The lawsuit is seeking millions of dollars in damages, including punitive damages and money to cover the costs of medical and psychological care.
Female Weinstein employees were used as “honeypots” to lure victims into meetings under the pretense of normal business, giving them a false sense of security, the suit alleges. Weinstein would then dismiss the so-called honeypot employees, leaving him alone with the victim, an act of trickery detailed in the New Yorker article that first brought sexual assault allegations to light….
A spokeswoman for Weinstein has said that “allegations of nonconsensual sex are unequivocally denied.”….
“We allege the Weinstein Company knew that Harvey Weinstein … was using his position…to bring young, aspiring actresses into vulnerable places where he would then prey on them,” he said….
In all, more than 50 women have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct. The latest victim, Malthe, a Norwegian-born actress, told reporters on Wednesday that Weinstein barged into her London hotel room in 2008, suggesting that he would offer her a part in an upcoming film if she would sleep with him.
Malthe said that after she told him she was not interested, Weinstein pushed her back and raped her. “I laid still and closed my eyes and just wanted it to end,” she said at a news conference in New York. “I was like a dead person. Afterwards I lay there in complete disgust.”….
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-fi-ct-harvey-weinstein-huett-20171025-story.html

HBO star Paz de la Huerta alleges Harvey Weinstein raped her
By JERICKA DUNCAN, LEN TEPPER CBS News November 2, 2017
NEW YORK — Sources tell CBS News that New York City police have brought prosecutors new rape allegations against Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Actress Paz de la Huerta says that in October of 2010, Weinstein offered to give her a ride home to her New York City apartment, after a party, because the two lived in the same neighborhood.
Ashley Judd calls Weinstein scandal “tipping point” on sexual harassment
She says Weinstein insisted they have drinks. The pair eventually ended up inside her apartment.
That’s when she alleges Weinstein took off her dress and forced himself on her.
De la Huerta spoke to CBS News over the phone.
“He pushed me on the bed … and it happened all very suddenly,” she said.
More than a month later, she claims she confronted Weinstein at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles because she says Weinstein kept calling her.
On Dec. 23 of the same year, she says Weinstein showed up in the lobby of her apartment and they went upstairs. De la Huerta alleges he raped her a second time….
The allegations by de la Huerta follow more than 50 others made by women against Weinstein. The office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. tells CBS News that they have assigned a senior sex crimes prosecutor to investigate this case….
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/harvey-weinstein-new-rape-allegations-paz-de-la-huerta/

Harvey Weinstein faces 2 new criminal investigations
By Michael Balsamo and Lindsey Bahr AP November 2
LOS ANGELES — Authorities in Los Angeles and New York said Thursday they had opened new investigations into Harvey Weinstein, the latest in a series of criminal probes into conduct by the disgraced film mogul which has sparked a sexual harassment scandal roiling Hollywood and other industries.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office said a senior prosecutor has been assigned to investigate allegations by “Boardwalk Empire” actress Paz de la Huerta, who told CBS News that Weinstein raped her twice in her apartment in 2010. Spokeswoman Joan Vollero said New York police were also involved, but further details could not be provided.
De la Huerta spoke to CBS News by phone and said the first rape occurred in October 2010 after Weinstein gave her a ride home from a party, insisted on having a drink in her apartment and forced himself on her. She said the second rape occurred in December 2010 after Weinstein came to her apartment; she had been drinking and was not in a condition to give consent, CBS reported the actress said.
Los Angeles police are investigating allegations about Weinstein that occurred in 2015, but spokesman Josh Rubenstein said he could not provide any additional details. The department is also investigating a report by an Italian actress and model who said she was raped by Weinstein in 2013.
Weinstein representative Sallie Hofmeister reiterated a statement that Weinstein, 65, denies all allegations of non-consensual sex….
CNN reported on Thursday that eight current or former “House of Cards” workers claim that Kevin Spacey made the production a “toxic” workplace and one ex-employee alleges the actor sexually assaulted him.
The workers’ identities were withheld from Thursday’s report because they fear professional fallout, the cable news channel said.
Among them is a former production assistant who alleged that Spacey assaulted him during one of the Netflix show’s early seasons, and CNN reported that all of the people described Spacey’s behavior as predatory.
The report accuses Spacey of allegedly targeting staffers who were typically young and male with nonconsensual touching and crude comments….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/harvey-weinstein-faces-2-new-criminal-investigations/2017/11/02/7afd6690-c041-11e7-9294-705f80164f6e_story.html

Corey Feldman, an alleged victim of childhood sexual abuse, says he is ready to come forward — but not quite yet By Stephanie Merry October 25
Long before a tidal wave of women came forward with allegations against Harvey Weinstein, Corey Feldman was sounding the alarm about Hollywood sexual abuse. In his 2013 memoir “Coreyography,” he detailed how, when he and his friend and co-star Corey Haim were the biggest child stars of the 1980s, they were allegedly sexually assaulted by men in the industry. According to Feldman, Haim was raped when he was 11. —
The “Lost Boys” star never revealed the names of the men allegedly responsible, however, and since the dam broke on the Weinstein story, the actor-turned-musician has come under tremendous pressure on social media to expose the guilty parties….
In an emotional video he posted to Twitter on Wednesday, Feldman said he wants to make a movie about his experience.
It will be the “most honest and true depiction of child abuse ever portrayed,” he said. He plans to direct, produce and self-distribute it — “with your donations.” He started an Indiegogo campaign for $10 million that will be used for a legal team and security for him and his family, he said, plus funds to create the film.
“Right off the bat I can name six names,” Feldman promised, “one of them who’s still very powerful today.” He also said he can show a link between pedophilia and one of the major studios.
He’s hoping to bring down a pedophile ring with the movie, not to mention revolutionize the film industry, making it safer for child actors….
“Justice will be served,” he promised. “Because this is about good and evil.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/10/25/corey-feldman-an-alleged-victim-of-childhood-sexual-abuse-is-getting-ready-to-name-names

Corey Feldman Names His Alleged Pedophile Abuser on Dr. Oz Show
Former child star says actor John Grissom still trolls him on social media
UPDATE: Corey Feldman named Eighties actor John Grissom as one of the men who allegedly sexually molested him as a teenager during a sit-down chat with Dr. Oz Thursday. The former child star called the LAPD to file a report against Grissom during the show, noting that the actor still had photos of himself with Feldman and his late friend Corey Haim on his social media pages.
Grissom appeared in 1988’s License to Drive and 1989’s Dream a Little Dream, both of which also starred Feldman. It was revealed on the show that Grissom has a previous arrest record that includes a 2001 arrest for child molestation, for which he was found guilty in 2003; he ultimately served time in prison. Dr. Oz noted on the show that Feldman also disclosed several other names off-air. In a video posted to Oz’s official Facebook page, Oz and his in-house legal counsel discuss Grissom’s possible whereabouts and go through his “extensive arrest record” at length….
The Goonies actor told the talk show host that he had previously named the perpetrators to the Santa Barbara police back in 1993, but says his allegations were brushed aside….
The revelation came about after Dr. Oz confronted Feldman about his previous claims – apparently disputed by the police – that he had already gone to the authorities, with no results.
“I called the Santa Barbara police, just got off the phone with them,” Dr. Oz said in a preview clip obtained by the Daily Mail. “As you were speaking, I was speaking. You claim that you spoke to them about your abuse in 1993, just to be clear.”
At that point, Feldman interjected, “It’s on the record.”
“And you named names,” Dr. Oz continued. “I listened to the recording and I did not hear you name names.”
Feldman explained that the police had turned off the recording device when he revealed the identity of his molesters. Convinced, the talk show host then urged Feldman to try again with the authorities, this time with the Los Angeles Police Department….
http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/corey-feldman-calls-lapd-to-name-pedophiles-on-dr-oz-show-w510906

Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Lawrence Describe Abuse in Speeches by Associated Press Oct 17 2017
Oscar winners Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Lawrence used their speeches at a Hollywood event honoring women to detail experiences of assault and harassment at the hands of directors and producers and pledged to do more to stop such situations.
Witherspoon told the audience at the Elle Women in Hollywood Awards on Monday night that the recent revelations of decades of sexual misconduct allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein had prompted her own experiences to come back “very vividly.”
Witherspoon said she had “true disgust at the director who assaulted me when I was 16 years old and anger at the agents and the producers who made me feel that silence was a condition of my employment.” ….
Lawrence detailed what she called a “degrading and humiliating” experience of being asked early on in her career to lose 15 pounds in two weeks for a role. She was then forced to pose nude alongside thinner women for photos that a female producer told her would serve as inspiration for her diet, she said.
When she tried to speak up about the demands, Lawrence said, she couldn’t find a sympathetic ear from those in power….
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/reese-witherspoon-jennifer-lawrence-describe-abuse-speeches-n811556

Ilana Glazer and Reese Witherspoon join the chorus of women sharing Hollywood abuse stories
By Stephanie Merry October 18
Ever since the allegations of serial abuse by Harvey Weinstein blew up, a tidal wave of women — plus a few men — in Hollywood have shared their own troubling tales involving high-powered producers, directors and executives….
The #MeToo stories spreading across Twitter and Facebook show that just about every woman has their own personal nightmare, and A-list actresses are no exception. Reese Witherspoon, for example, used her speech at the Elle Women in Hollywood event Monday night to reveal that a director sexually assaulted her when she was just 16. That was the first time it happened to her, she said, though not the last….
She’s not alone. America Ferrera acknowledged that a man sexually assaulted her when she was 9 years old. The actress shared her story in an Instagram post, during which she urged women to “break the silence” to help future generations.
Jennifer Lawrence added her own anecdotes to the growing list. At the same Elle-sponsored event, the Oscar winner talked about being part of a humiliating nude lineup. As a way to shame her into losing weight for a role, she was forced to stand beside much thinner women, then photographed. A female producer suggested Lawrence use the picture as weight-loss “inspiration.”….
One exception is Isa Hackett, a producer for “The Man in the High Castle,” who went public last week with her story about Amazon Studios chief Roy Price, who she alleges sexually harassed her. Price was suspended by the company….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/10/17/reese-witherspoon-and-jennifer-lawrence-join-the-chorus-of-women-sharing-hollywood-abuse-stories/

Star Trek actor Anthony Rapp accuses Kevin Spacey of making sexual advance toward him at 14
Spacey, in response, apologized to Rapp while also coming out as gay
Lynette Rice October 30, 2017
Kevin Spacey has apologized to Anthony Rapp after Rapp alleged Spacey made an unwanted sexual advance toward the Star Trek: Discovery actor when he was 14 years old. Spacey, at the time, was 26….
In an interview with BuzzFeed published late Sunday, Rapp, now 46, alleged Spacey invited the then-teenager to his Manhattan apartment for a party in 1986, where Rapp said he spent most of the evening in a bedroom watching television. As the night wound down, Rapp said he found himself alone in the dwelling with Spacey.
“My memory was that I thought, Oh, everybody’s gone. Well, yeah, I should probably go home,” Rapp said. According to Rapp, Spacey appeared in the bedrrom doorway and allegedly picked the young actor “up like a groom picks up the bride over the threshold.”
“But I don’t, like, squirm away initially, because I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ And then he lays down on top of me,” Rapp said.
At the time, Rapp was starring in the play Precious Sons opposite Ed Harris while Spacey was doing Long Day’s Journey Into Night with Jack Lemmon. “He was trying to seduce me,” Rapp alleged. “I don’t know if I would have used that language. But I was aware that he was trying to get with me sexually.”….
http://ew.com/tv/2017/10/29/kevin-spacey-anthony-rapp-sexual-misconduct/

Actor Anthony Rapp: Kevin Spacey Made A Sexual Advance Toward Me When I Was 14
The Star Trek: Discovery actor says women speaking out about sexual misconduct in the entertainment industry has compelled him to come forward about the Oscar winner.
October 30, 2017 Adam B. Vary BuzzFeed News Reporter
….In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Rapp is publicly alleging for the first time that in 1986, Spacey befriended Rapp while they both performed on Broadway shows, invited Rapp over to his apartment for a party, and, at the end of the night, picked Rapp up, placed him on his bed, and climbed on top of him, making a sexual advance. According to public records, Spacey was 26. Rapp was 14.
….Rapp said he encountered Spacey again at one of those post-show functions, when a 17-year-old friend from Joliet was visiting him in New York. “And he was like, ‘Hey! Hi! Come join us!'” Rapp said. Spacey then invited both boys to join him at the popular nightclub Limelight, even though, as Rapp explained, “I looked younger than 14.”
“I don’t know how— We got in through the front door,” Rapp continued. “We didn’t have to show ID. And we sat with him in some VIP area.” Rapp noted that he had no memory of being offered alcohol — “It was just a fun night just talking and hanging out,” he said — and at some point, Spacey invited him to attend a party he was hosting a few days later at his Manhattan apartment.
….When he arrived at Spacey’s apartment, Rapp quickly realized that he was the only nonadult there — which, again, did not worry him, since he so often had found himself in similar situations as a child actor. The bigger issue: “I didn’t know anyone,” he said. “And I was quickly kind of bored.”
Rapp said he ended up wandering into the bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed, and watching TV well past midnight.
“I was aware that he was trying to get with me sexually.”
At some point, Rapp said he turned to see Spacey standing at the bedroom door. And that’s when he first realized that everyone else had left the party. They were alone.
“My memory was that I thought, Oh, everybody’s gone. Well, yeah, I should probably go home,” Rapp said. Spacey, he recalled, “sort of stood in the doorway, kind of swaying. My impression when he came in the room was that he was drunk.” Rapp doesn’t remember Spacey saying anything to him. Instead, Rapp said, “He picked me up like a groom picks up the bride over the threshold. But I don’t, like, squirm away initially, because I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ And then he lays down on top of me.”
“He was trying to seduce me,” Rapp said. “I don’t know if I would have used that language. But I was aware that he was trying to get with me sexually.”….
https://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/anthony-rapp-kevin-spacey-made-sexual-advance-when-i-was-14

Child abuse documentary Hollywood ‘didn’t want you to see’ goes viral
The film An Open Secret died upon release in 2015, but is seeing a renewed interest online amid a cascade of allegations against Hollywood’s elite Rory Carroll in Los Angeles Wednesday 1 November 2017
….“We got zero Hollywood offers to distribute the film. Not even one. Literally no offers for any price whatsoever,” said Gabe Hoffman, a Florida-based hedge fund manager who financed the film.
It did not seem to matter that it was directed by an Oscar-nominated director, Amy Berg, or that it uncovered damning evidence of the sexual abuse of teenage boys by figures in the film industry.
“There was nowhere to see it,” said Lorien Haynes, the film’s writer. “I don’t think it impacted at all. Nobody saw it. We released a film that didn’t [seem to] exist.”
Now, two years later, multiple “open secrets” of predatory behaviour are detonating across Hollywood and the documentary that blew the whistle is getting millions of viewers – but still no distribution deal.
Hoffman released the film for free on the video-sharing website Vimeo this month after reports about Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual assaults set off a chain-reaction, with James Toback, Tyler Grasham and Kevin Spacey among those accused of harassment and worse.
….Berg, the director, had earned an Oscar nomination for her film Deliver Us from Evil, about sex abuse in the Catholic church.
Her team obtained evidence of a paedophile ring in Hollywood – managers, agents, publicists and directors – that preyed on young boys and teenagers seeking entry to the industry.
Some hosted lavish parties where men allegedly plied the boys with alcohol and drugs and traded them for sex. Others spent years grooming victims, and winning the confidence of their families, before starting sexual assaults.
A handful were caught and served relatively brief jail sentences before returning to the industry. Brian Peck, an actor and acting coach who worked for Nickelodeon and the X-Men franchise, was convicted of two counts of lewd acts with a child. He is now working in the industry again.
The documentary features interviews with Evan Henzi, who was 11 years old when his manager, Martin Weiss, started assaulting him. Weiss pleaded no contest in 2012 to two counts of child molestation, and was sentenced to a year in jail and five years’ probation. He was freed immediately due to time served.
….Haynes, who wrote the script, said mid-ranking television executives seemed eager to buy the film, only to be overruled. “At the top of the food chain is where we got the ‘no’. It did feel that people were scared to run it. It is complete anathema to release a film about corruption in Hollywood in Hollywood.”
She acknowledged another factor: a harrowing film about child abuse was a tough sell. “You’re expecting a lot of an audience to sit through that.”
For two years An Open Secret existed in film purgatory, available only in pirated online versions, few people aware that here was evidence of abuse, collusion and cover-up in the heart of Tinseltown….
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/nov/01/an-open-secret-hollywood-child-abuse-documentary

38 women have come forward to accuse director James Toback of sexual harassment – LA Times
By Glenn Whipp October 22, 2017
He prowled the streets of Manhattan looking for attractive young women, usually in their early 20s, sometimes college students, on occasion a high schooler. He approached them in Central Park, standing in line at a bank or drug store or at a copy center while they worked on their resumes.
His opening line had a few variations. One went: “My name’s James Toback. I’m a movie director. Have you ever seen ‘Black and White’ or ‘Two Girls and a Guy’?”
Probably not. So he’d start to drop names. He had an Oscar nomination for writing the Warren Beatty movie “Bugsy.” He directed Robert Downey Jr., in three movies. The actor, Toback claimed, was a close friend; he had “invented him.” If you didn’t believe him, he would pull out a business card or an article that had been written about him to prove he had some juice in Hollywood. That he could make you a star.
But first, he’d need to get to know you. Intimately. Trust him, he’d say. It’s all part of his process.
Then, in a hotel room, a movie trailer, a public park, meetings framed as interviews or auditions quickly turned sexual, according to 38 women who, in separate interviews told the Los Angeles Times of similar encounters they had with Toback.
During these meetings, many of the women said, Toback boasted of sexual conquests with the famous and then asked humiliating personal questions. How often do you masturbate? How much pubic hair do you have? He’d tell them, they said, that he couldn’t properly function unless he “jerked off” several times a day. And then he’d dry-hump them or masturbate in front of them, ejaculating into his pants or onto their bodies and then walk away. Meeting over.
The women’s accounts portray James Toback as a man who, for decades, sexually harassed women he hired, women looking for work and women he just saw on the street. The vast majority of these women — 31 of the 38 interviewed — spoke on the record. The Times also interviewed people that the women informed of the incidents when they occurred.
As is often the case, none of them contacted the police at the time. When contacted by The Times, Toback denied the allegations, saying that he had never met any of these women or, if he did, it “was for five minutes and have no recollection.” He also repeatedly claimed that for the last 22 years, it had been “biologically impossible” for him to engage in the behavior described by the women in this story, saying he had diabetes and a heart condition that required medication. Toback declined to offer further details.
The women interviewed during The Times’ investigation offered accounts that differed from Toback’s recollections.
“The way he presented it, it was like, ‘This is how things are done,’” actress Adrienne LaValley said of a 2008 hotel room encounter that ended with Toback trying to rub his crotch against her leg. When she recoiled, he stood up and ejaculated in his pants. “I felt like a prostitute, an utter disappointment to myself, my parents, my friends. And I deserved not to tell anyone.”….
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-mn-james-toback-sexual-harassment-allegations-20171018-story.html

Director James Toback Accused of Sexual Harassment By More Than 30 Women
By Leanne Aciz Stanton October 22, 2017
….Director James Toback has been accused of sexual harassment by more than 30 women in a damning exposé published by the Los Angeles Times.
The Oscar nominee, 72, reportedly preyed upon young women who had dreams of stardom, promising to make them famous before their meetings and auditions turned sexual, according to the article published on Sunday, October 22. The paper interviewed 38 women, 31 of whom went on the record, claiming that not only did Toback make vulgar comments, but in some cases he had rubbed himself against them and even masturbated in front of them.
Veruca Salt vocalist and guitarist Louise Post recounted a harrowing experience with the Black and White director after meeting him while attending college in 1987: “He told me he’d love nothing more than to masturbate while looking into my eyes … Going to his apartment has been the source of shame for the past 30 years, that I allowed myself to be so gullible.” The band tweeted about Toback on Monday, October 17, with the #MeToo hashtag, calling him a “pig.”
Stars at Court
Actress Adrienne LaValley told the Times that Toback once attempted to rub his privates against her leg before ejaculating in his pants, saying, “The way he presented it, it was like, ‘This is how things are done.’” Another woman alleged that the filmmaker — whose most recent film, The Private Life of a Modern Woman, starred Sienna Miller — berated her for not taking off her clothes, before forcing his groin against her. Former As the World Turns actress Teri Conn shared a similar story of Toback humping her leg after he approached her on the street….
https://www.usmagazine.com/

celebrity-news/news/director-james-toback-accused-of-sexual-harassment-by-more-than-30-women/

James Toback Rants Against Sexual Harassment Allegations Made by Julianne Moore, Others
By Kathy Campbell October 27, 2017
Director James Toback denied sexual harassment allegations made by Julianne Moore, Selma Blair and others in an angry rant to Rolling Stone on Friday, October 27….
In a story published by the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, October 22, more than 30 women accused the director of sexual harassment, which he denied. Several of the women said he approached them on the streets of NYC, offering them a part in an upcoming movie before making an unwanted sexual advance.
In a follow-up story, the Times claimed that an additional 200 women had come forward to detail similar encounters with the Oscar-nominated writer….
https://www.usmagazine.com/

celebrity-news/news/james-toback-denies-sexual-harassment-allegations-in-angry-rant/

Fresh Headache For Murdochs: Bill O’Reilly Got Raise After Secret Payout
October 23, 2017 David Folkenflik
Bill O’Reilly wants you to know it’s all lies, driven by ideology, personal animus and professional jealousy.
Since The New York Times reported this weekend that he had agreed to a $32 million settlement to silence a longtime colleague’s accusations of sexual harassment back in January, O’Reilly has been brawling to defend his already deeply tarnished reputation.
O’Reilly’s former bosses at Fox News and parent company 21st Century — and especially for the Murdoch family that controls both — are fighting to contain fallout on multiple fronts. The Murdochs signed O’Reilly to a contract extension a month after their star host agreed to the secret payout — and despite knowing of at least four earlier instances in which he settled with women over sexual harassment dating back to 2004.
“Nobody pays $32 million to anybody for false accusations,” former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson told HLN.
“It’s shocking and it’s disturbing,” former Fox News host Megyn Kelly said on her new NBC Today show program.
All three Murdochs — Rupert and his sons Lachlan and James — have made pledges to reform the culture of Fox News. The late Roger Ailes, the propulsive force behind Fox News, was bought out as chairman last year after Carlson, Kelly and others accused him of sexual harassment. A host of network executives were forced out over the ensuing year for their ties to Ailes and perceptions they had enabled abusive behavior. The Murdochs paid O’Reilly $20 million to leave in the spring after several previously unknown settlements with women came to light. The network also forced out host Eric Bolling.
And yet Kelly devoted the opening minutes of her Monday morning show to an extended argument that Fox had not done enough.
On her show, Kelly just about set out a roadmap for prosecutors, arguing Fox had betrayed a pattern of hiding allegations through payments and threats, and retribution against those women who spoke up. “This has to stop,” Kelly said on NBC. “The abuse of women, the shaming them, the threatening, the retaliation, the silencing of them after the fact.” ….
Regulators are now assessing more broadly the family’s leadership. The Murdochs rewarded O’Reilly with a new contract and a raise after learning of the Wiehl settlement. That suggests the Murdochs were willing to give O’Reilly a sixth chance on sexual harassment, just six months after ousting their chairman for the same transgression.
http://www.npr.org/2017/10/23/559615152/fox-news-knew-about-allegations-against-oreilly-before-his-contract-renewal

Brother of Las Vegas shooter arrested on child porn charges John Bacon, USA TODAY Oct. 25, 2017
A brother of Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock was arrested Wednesday in Los Angeles on child pornography charges, authorities said.
Bruce Paddock, 59, was taken into custody at an assisted living facility in North Hollywood. A criminal complaint filed by prosecutors in Los Angeles County lists 19 counts of sexual exploitation of a child and one count of possession of child pornography.
The complaint alleges that between January and August 2014, Paddock possessed and exchanged more than 600 photos depicting children under age 18 engaging in or simulating sexual activity. At least 10 of the images depicted children under age 12, the complaint alleges….
“Paddock had been squatting inside the business, and after his eviction the evidence was discovered,” police said in a statement. Paddock has previous convictions for vandalism, criminal threats and theft, NBC reported, citing court records.
Stephen Paddock’s shooting rampage on the Las Vegas Strip on Oct. 1 killed 58 people and wounded hundreds more. After the attack, Bruce Paddock told NBC News he was questioned twice about the shooting by the FBI….
Stephen Paddock, 64, killed himself after his rampage. Their father, Benjamin Paddock, was on the FBI’s 10 most-wanted fugitives list in 1968 after escaping from a Texas prison that same year.
Benjamin Paddock had been sentenced to 20 years in the Federal Correction Facility in La Tuna, Texas, after robbing Valley National Bank in Phoenix in 1960. After his escape, he fled to Oregon and ran a bingo parlor before he was recaptured in 1978. He died in 1998….
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/10/25/brother-las-vegas-shooter-arrested-child-porn-charges/798888001/

Ireland Wanted to Forget. But the Dead Don’t Always Stay Buried.
The Lost Children of Tuam By DAN BARRY OCT. 28, 2017
….Her daring essay implicitly raised a provocative question: Had Catholic nuns, working in service of the state, buried the bodies of hundreds of children in the septic system?
Catherine braced for condemnation from government and clergy — but none came. It was as if she had written nothing at all.
There was a time when Catherine wanted only to have a plaque erected in memory of these forgotten children. But now she felt that she owed them much more. “No one cared,” she said. “And that’s my driving force all the time: No one cared.”
She kept digging, eventually paying for another spreadsheet that listed the names, ages, and death dates of all the “illegitimate” children who had died in the home during its 36-year existence.
The sobering final tally: 796…..
The Tuam home was not alone. Children born out of wedlock during this period were nearly four times more likely to die than “legitimate” children, with those in institutions at particular risk. The reasons may be many — poor prenatal care, insufficient government funding, little or no training of staff – but this is certain: It was no secret.

In 1934, the Irish parliament was informed of the inordinate number of deaths among this group of children. “One must come to the conclusion that they are not looked after with the same care and attention as that given to ordinary children,” a public health official said.
Thirty died in the Tuam home that year.
In 1938, it was 26. In 1940, 34. In 1944, 40.
In 1947, a government health inspector filed a report describing the conditions of infants in the nursery: “a miserable emaciated child…delicate…occasional fits…emaciated and delicate…fragile abscess on hip…not thriving wizened limbs emaciated…pot-bellied emaciated…a very poor baby…”
That year, 52 died.
Catherine felt obligated to these children. Continuing to plumb the depths of the past, she eventually cross-checked her spreadsheet of 796 deceased home babies with the burial records of cemeteries throughout counties Galway and Mayo. Not one match.
“They’re not in the main Tuam graveyard where they should have been put initially,” she remembers thinking. “They’re not in their mothers’ hometown graveyards. Where are they?”
Catherine, of course, already knew….
But thoughts of the dead children of Tuam pushed Catherine beyond her fears. Believing that the body of even one “legitimate” baby found in a septic tank would have prompted an outcry, she suspected that the silence met by her essay spoke to a reluctance to revisit the painful past — a past that had consumed her own mother.
Now she was angry.

Adding to her fury was the knowledge that when a Tuam hospital run by the Bon Secours closed in 2002, the religious order disinterred the bodies of a dozen nuns and reinterred them in consecrated ground outside the nearby pilgrimage town of Knock.
“I feel it at times: that those poor little souls were crying out for recognition, a recognition they never got in their little, short lives,” Catherine said. “It was a wrong that just had to be righted some way.”
Seeing no other option, she contacted a reporter for The Irish Mail on Sunday, a national newspaper. Not long after, in the spring of 2014, a front-page story appeared about a certain seven acres in Tuam.
It became the talk of Ireland….
This subterranean trawling was being conducted on an early autumn day in 2015 for the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, a panel created by an embarrassed government in response to Catherine’s research. Its charge: to examine a once-accepted way of Irish life in all its social and historical complexity.
The commission’s investigation into the homes — a network that by the late 1970s was falling into disuse — is focused on 18 institutions scattered across Ireland: in the capital city of Dublin, and in Counties Clare, Cork, Donegal, Galway, Kilkenny, Meath, Tipperary and Westmeath. The high infant mortality rate in some of these facilities was startling. In the Bessborough home in Cork, 478 children died from 1934 to 1953 — or about one death every two weeks.
The investigation’s broad mandate also includes scrutiny of the network’s links to the notorious Magdalen Laundries. The apparent coercion of unmarried mothers to surrender their children for adoption, often to Catholic Americans. The vaccine trials carried out on mother-and-baby-home children for pharmaceutical companies. The use of home-baby remains for anatomical study at medical colleges.
It was all part of a church-state arrangement that, decades earlier, a longtime government health inspector named Alice Litster had repeatedly denounced, mostly to silence. This system marginalized defenseless Irish women, she asserted, and turned their unfortunate offspring into “infant martyrs of convenience, respectability, and fear.”….

The Tuam case incited furious condemnation of a Catholic Church already weakened by a litany of sexual abuse scandals. Others countered that the sisters of Bon Secours had essentially been subcontractors of the Irish state…..
It was true.
In early March of this year, the Mother and Baby Homes Commission reported that “significant quantities of human remains” had been discovered on the grounds of the Tuam home.
The ground-penetrating radar and delicate excavation had revealed what appeared to be a decommissioned septic tank. And in 17 of that septic system’s 20 chambers, investigators found many human bones. A small sampling revealed that they were of children, ranging in age from 35 fetal weeks to three years, and all dating from the home’s 36 years of operation.
Expressing shock, the commission vowed to continue its investigation into “who was responsible for the disposal of human remains in this way.”
Once again, Ireland’s past had returned to haunt.
His voice trembling with passion, the prime minister, Enda Kenny, addressed the Irish legislature on what he called the “chamber of horrors” discovered in Tuam. In the “so-called good old days,” he said, Irish society “did not just hide away the dead bodies of tiny human beings.”….
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/28/world/europe/tuam-ireland-babies-children.html

For Those Who Condemn Themselves for Acts Coerced Under Torture
By Dr. Lacter In Fighting for Survivors October 15, 2017
One of the most disturbing horrors described by survivors of extreme child abuse is having been subjected to torture to coerce them, while being tortured, to harm or kill other victims. Many survivors describe clear memories of first being subjected to this form of abuse as young children. The subsequent moral injury is devastating….

This article seeks:
1) to educate therapists and survivors about the existence of torture-coerced perpetration;
2) to describe the long-term devastating moral injury resulting from having been coerced to harm others;
3) to describe the kinds of torture that predictably work to coerce victims to harm and kill others;
4) to describe various psychological responses of victims while they are being coerced to harm others;
5) to place full responsibility for all coerced harm with the abusers; the torture victims are innocent.
6) to help victims and survivors to overcome their moral injury, and to help therapists help them.
The descriptions of these phenomena and my opinions on these matters are based on my having provided psychotherapy to more than 40 people who have been subjected to extreme abuse since 1994, interviews within a research study with six intern-level therapists who are also survivors of such abuse, long-term collaboration with many colleagues who are survivor-therapists and survivor-activists, and my provision of consultation to more than 30 psychotherapists working with victims of this form of abuse.

The sections of this article are:
I. The Motives of the Abusers
II. The Psychological Devastation and Moral Injury of Having Been Coerced to Harm Others
III. A Brief Look at Torture
IV. Methods of Torture To Coerce Victims to Harm Other Victims
V. The Psychological Mechanisms Underlying Submission to the Will of Torturers
VI. A Realistic Evaluation of the Issue of Responsibility for Harm to Others Exacted under Torture
VII. The Law and Coerced Perpetration
VIII. A Survivor Declaration: A Means for Survivors of Such Torture to Support Each Other
IX. A Therapist Declaration: A Means for Psychotherapists to Stand Up for Victims and Survivors… http://endritualabuse.org/coerced-under-torture/

Hypnotism by G.H. Estabrooks By Dr. Lacter In What is Ritual Abuse? April 25, 2017
From Hypnotism, by G.H. Estabrooks,
1943, 1957 Paperback published in New York by E.P. Dutton

Chapter IX: Hypnotism in Warfare
…. The operator has succeeded in hypnotizing the subject without his consent if not against his will. It is the same thing as far as practical results are concerned. But in this war situation he must go further if he is to attain the results for which he is striving. There must be no leakage, no talking outside the classroom. So the operator now removes from the subject all knowledge that he has ever been hypnotized. This is quite simple, again by the use of suggestion in the trance. We tell the subject in hypnotism that on awakening he will have no remembrance of ever having been hypnotized, that if questioned he will insist he knows nothing about hypnotism and has never been a subject.
But we must go even further than this. Once a person has become accustomed to hypnotism, has been repeatedly hypnotized, it becomes very easy for any operator to throw him into the trance. Obviously this will not do if we are to use hypnotism in warfare. So we plug this gap again by suggestion in the somnambulistic state. We assure the subject that in the future no one will be able to hypnotize him except with the special consent of the operator. This takes care of things very nicely.
The picture we now have is quite different from that which the reader has associated with hypnotism. We sit down with the subject in the laboratory. We are talking about the latest boxing match when the operator taps three times on the table with his pencil. Instantly — and we mean instantly — the subject’s eyes close and he’s sound “asleep.” While in trance he sees a black dog come into the room, feels the dog, goes to the telephone and tells its owner to come get it. The dog is of course purely imaginary. We give him an electric shock which would be torture to a normal person, but he does not even notice it. We straighten him out between two chairs and sit on his chest while he recites poetry. Then we wake him up.

The Super Spy
….We start with an excellent subject, and he must be just that, one of those rare individuals who accepts and who carries through every suggestion without hesitation. In addition, we need a man or a woman who is highly intelligent and physically tough. Then we start to develop a case of multiple personality through the use of hypnotism. In his normal waking state, which we will call Personality A, or PA, this individual will become a rabid communist. He will join the party, follow the party line and make himself as objectionable as possible to the authorities. Note that he will be acting in good faith. He is a communist, or rather his PA is a communist and will behave as such.
Then we develop Personality B (PB), the secondary personality, the unconscious personality, if you wish, although this is somewhat of a contradiction in terms. This personality is rabidly American and anti-communist. It has all the information possessed by PA, the normal personality, whereas PA does not have this advantage. You will recognize this relation as similar to that which we had in Sally and the Angel from the famous Beauchamp case, also the clear-cut difference in ideals.

The proper training of a person for this role would be long and tedious, but once he was trained, you would have a super spy compared to which any creation in a mystery story is just plain weak.
…In psychology, we hear much about mental conflict. In hypnotism , we do everything possible to avoid this conflict, especially in the field of ethics. When multiple personality appears spontaneously – as we know it does- it is a device on the part of the mind to solve this matter of conflict. The personality splits, one part acting under one group of ethical ideals, the other governed by the conflicting group. Under this adroit arrangement, there is no conflict. Goethe said that he had the makings in himself of gentleman and of a rogue. Many of us are in the same situation and at times the conflict can become quite acute. In a case of real multiple personality, the conflict is eliminated. The gentleman goes his way, the rogue goes his way, and both are quite happy with the arrangement.
….The reader is asked to remember that, in hypnotism, the individual is highly suggestible. There is a belief held by some that he will do nothing in the trance that he would not do in the “waking state.” This is sheer nonsense. The writer has seen more than one stage performance wherein respected members of the community have made fools of themselves in public, an exhibition they would almost certainly never give if normal. On at least three occasions these subjects have later tried to “beat up” the hypnotist for his part in the affair. It is simply a question of degree. W also have cases in the records of hypnotism wherein subjects have given fraternity secrets or talked of very private love affairs.

….With hypnotism, we can be sure of our private messenger. We hypnotize our man in, say, Washington. In hypnotism we give him the message. That message, may we add, can be both long and intricate. An intelligent individual can memorize a whole book if necessary. Then we start him out for Australia by plane with the instructions that no one can hypnotize him under any circumstances except Colonel Brown in Melbourne. By this device we overcome two difficulties. It is useless to intercept this messenger. He has no documents and no amount of “third degreeing” can extract the information, for the information is not in the conscious mind to extract. We could also make him insensitive to pain so that even the third degree would be useless. http://endritualabuse.org/hypnotism-by-g-h-estabrooks/

Information on Ellen Lacter and Her Research https://ritualabuse.us/smart/ellen-lacter/

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