Issue 143 – November 2018

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 143 – November 2018

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 2018 – All rights reserved. No reproduction of any material without written permission from the editor and individual authors.

The Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Mind Control 2019 Conference
When: Regular Conference – Saturday and Sunday May 4 – 5, 2019 Clinician’s Conference – Friday May 3, 2019 Where: Courtyard Marriot Long Beach Airport Long Beach, CA
https://survivorship.org/ritual-abuse-and-mind-control-2019-conference/

The 2019 Annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control Conference
August 17 – 18, 2019 DoubleTree near Bradley International Airport Windsor Locks, CT
Internet conference information: http://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/

This issue includes information on:

Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Mind Control 2019 Conference, 2019 Annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control Conference, Ritual Abuse – Child Abuse Wiki, Randy Noblitt PhD, Neil Brick, Organised Abuse in the UK Conference 2018, Laurie Matthew, Izzy’s Promise, Sarah Nelson, Joseph Lumbasi, Myth of Satanic Panic, Satan worshiping middle school girls, Catholic diocese, Catholic priests, Chilean bishops, Pope Francis, Pennsylvania dioceses, Catholic clergy sex abuse investigation, Dr. Reginald Archibald, Mexico violence Veracruz mass grave, Drug-related violence in Mexico, German Catholic priests, Rotherham child sexual abuse, Brett Kavanaugh, sexual misconduct, Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, #MeToo survivors, attempted rape, Mark Judge, Christine Blasey Ford, Anita Hill, Justice Clarence Thomas, sexual harassment, Deborah Ramirez, Julie Swetnick, Arizona Shelter Migrant Child Abuse, Dr. Grant William Robicheaux, Cerissa Laura Riley, Grace Road A South Korean church, South Korean ‘Cult Leader’, Bill Cosby, sexual assault, Andrea Constand, Smyllum Park orphanage, Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, Catholic Children’s home, Nigel Kennedy, religious ceremonies, Ex-Jehovah’s Witness, Romy Maple, Cults and Extreme Belief, polygamous cult, Briell Decker, Warren Jeffs, FLDS sect, fundamentalist Mormon cult, Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Nevada’s famous pimp Dennis Hof, allegation of sexual assault, Casa Isla abuse case, Scott Morrison’s national apology to Australian survivors and victims of child sexual abuse, Colonia Dignidad, Nazi, ex-Nazi Paul Schäfer, Hartmut Hopp, Corey Feldman, Documentary of Child Abuse in Movie Industry, Truth: the Rape of 2 Coreys, Hollywood’s Sexual Misconduct Scandals, Ritual Child Sexual Abuse, ‘black magic’ prostitution ring in Murcia, North Korea Sexual abuse of women

Ritual Abuse – Child Abuse Wiki Ritual abuse exists all over the world. There have been reports, journal articles, web pages and criminal convictions of crimes against children and adults. http://childabusewiki.org/index.php?title=Ritual_Abuse

The 2018 Annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control Conference https://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/2018-conference/

The Credibility of Ritual Abuse Allegations Presenter: Randy Noblitt, PhD Synopsis: To what extent do mental health and other helping professionals believe the stories of ritual abuse survivors? This presentation systematically reviews the empirical research on the credibility of ritual abuse allegations. After presenting the findings there will be a discussion that welcomes the opinions of the attendees regarding their own conclusions including considerations of the community standard, professional ethics, related forensic questions, and advocacy for extreme abuse survivors. Randy Noblitt, PhD, is a clinical psychologist (licensed in Texas) and professor of clinical psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University, Los Angeles. In the course of his practice, Randy has treated more than 300 individuals who met the criteria for dissociative identity disorder. He is the principle author of Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America (Praeger, 1995. 2000), and its third edition, Cult and Ritual Abuse: Narratives, Evidence and Healing Approaches (Praeger, 2014). He is also co-editor and contributing author of the book, Ritual Abuse in the 21st Century: Psychological, Forensic, Social and Political Considerations (Robert Reed, 2008). https://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/2018-conference/the-credibility-of-ritual-abuse-allegations/

Changes in Awareness of Severe Abuse and Child Abuse Crimes Over Twenty Five Years Presenter: Neil Brick

The awareness of severe abuse and child abuse crimes has changed over the last 25 years. In the early 1990s, severe abuse survivors were often believed and supported. Then a backlash started and severe abuse survivors and their supporters were harassed and attacked. The child abuse survivor movement changed and adapted. Ten years ago, research began again to help expose severe abuse crimes. More recently, first in the UK and Australia and now in the United States, a variety of child abuse, severe abuse, sexual harassment and rape cases are bringing public awareness again to the mainstream media of severe abuse crimes. This presentation will discuss the changes of the last 25 years, with an emphasis on the more recent exposures of organized child abuse crimes and social systems that have been part of the cover up of these crimes.

Neil Brick is a survivor of ritual abuse and mind control. His work continues to educate the public about child abuse, trauma and ritual abuse crimes. His child abuse and ritual abuse newsletter S.M.A.R.T. https://ritualabuse.us has been published for over 22 years. http://neilbrick.com
https://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/2018-conference/changes-in-awareness-of-severe-abuse-and-child-abuse-crimes-over-twenty-five-years/

Child and Ritual Abuse Conference Helps Educate Survivors and Their Helpers; Speakers included Dr. Randy Noblitt and Neil Brick
Child and Ritual Abuse Conference Speakers Included:
• Dr. Randall Noblitt • Neil Brick
• Jillian Jackson • Manjot Singh Khalsa
• Mike Skinner – Musician
https://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=227656

Two Satan worshiping middle school girls plotted to kill fellow students and drink their blood New York Daily News Brian Niemietz Oct 24th 2018
Two satanic knife-wielding school girls were arrested in central Florida, where cops say they were hiding in a bathroom waiting for smaller students to walk in so they could kill them and “leave body parts at the entrance” before taking their own lives. The goal was to murder 15 classmates.

Bartow Police Department thwarted the bizarre plot after a middle school resource office caught wind of the girls’ intentions, according to CBS.
A teachers at Bartow Middle School reportedly heard on Monday that one of the girls, an 11-year-old, had warned another student to avoid a certain area of the campus when she came to class Tuesday….

According to police, that’s when the girls confessed to the plan. Both were said to have been armed with cutlery including a butcher’s knife and a pizza cutter. They “were planning in attacking and killing as many students as possible.”

Hall said the girls wanted to kill “at least” 15 people.
“Both students stated they are practicing satanists,” Hall said. He added, “They made comments they were willing to drink blood and possibly eat flesh.”….

The girls’ cell phones corroborated the plan.
“Today is health lessons. Thank Satan we are doing this in a bit,” one girl texted the other.
The girls are charged with conspiracy to commit murder, weapon possession and disruption of a school function….
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/10/24/two-satan-worshiping-middle-school-girls-plotted-to-kill-fellow-students-and-drink-their-blood/23570847/

New York attorney general’s office has issued subpoenas to every Catholic diocese in the state
By Julie Zauzmer and Michelle Boorstein September 6, 2018

The New York attorney general’s office has issued subpoenas to every Catholic diocese in the state, becoming the latest U.S. state to embark on an expansive investigation of sex crimes committed and covered up by Catholic priests.

The Catholic Church faces a major test over the next several months, as the attorneys general of at least five states conduct investigations and several more consider opening up the decades-old secret files of the dioceses in their states. Millions of Catholics nationwide now must grapple with attending a church that is under criminal investigation.

After New York’s subpoenas were issued, and first reported by the Associated Press on Thursday, New Jersey quickly followed, announcing a criminal task force focused on investigating sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. New Mexico launched an investigation this week, and Nebraska and Missouri have inquiries underway….

A person familiar with the New York investigation told The Washington Post that the attorney general’s office sent civil subpoenas to the eight Catholic dioceses. The subpoenas are part of an ongoing civil investigation by the attorney general’s Charities Bureau, which is looking into whether the nonprofit dioceses covered up sexual abuse of minors.

Separately, the criminal division is working with district attorneys in the state who might convene grand juries to investigate crimes committed by priests. On Thursday, Attorney General Barbara Underwood announced a telephone hotline and an online forum for victims and witnesses of child abuse committed by clergy in the state of New York to contact investigators. New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal also said that his office had set up a new telephone hotline for victims of sexual abuse by clergy and would investigate the allegations through its new criminal task force….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/09/06/new-york-joins-the-list-of-states-investigating-sex-crimes-committed-by-catholic-priests/

Dozens of clergy sex abuse victims waiting on answers about compensation
Jenn Schanz Oct 24, 2018

News 4 has learned that at least 54 local clergy sex abuse victims are still waiting on a substantive response from the Buffalo Diocese regarding their claims for compensation through the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program, or IRCP.

The program was announced several months ago, after the Buffalo Diocese released the names of 42 priests accused of child sexual abuse.
The list was published after a South Buffalo man, Michael Whalen, went public with his story of alleged abuse as a child at the hands of Fr. Norbert F. Orsolits.

Since then, several other victims have come forward and News 4 has reported on at least a dozen additional priests being put on administrative leave following accusations of abuse.

The Diocese has said a new, updated list will be released in the near future, but has not said when exactly it will be released, or how many names will be on it….
We were referred back to the Diocese’s website on the program. We asked the Diocese how many victims they have responded to; we are still waiting on a response.

“They have in all likelihood, hundreds of survivors who are waiting and have been waiting for months and months since the deadline to even know if they’re eligible for the program. And that’s something that’s really hard when this is an institution that already failed them,” Reck told News 4….https://www.wivb.com/news/local-news/dozens-of-clergy-sex-abuse-victims-waiting-on-answers-about-compensation/1546925553

Pope defrocks two Chilean bishops over child abuse claims 13 October 2018 Pope Francis has stripped two Chilean bishops of their duties as priests amid claims that they are linked to the sexual abuse of minors.

They are Francisco José Cox Huneeus, archbishop emeritus of La Serena, and Marco Antonio Órdenes Fernández, archbishop emeritus of Iquique.
The Vatican issued a statement on their defrocking after a meeting between the pontiff and the president of Chile.
The decision could not be appealed against, it said on Saturday.

It was announced as Pope Francis met Chile’s President Sebastian Piñera in the Vatican, where the two spoke particularly about “the painful scourge of abuse of minors”.
More than 100 Catholic clergy are being investigated in Chile over alleged sex crimes and attempts to cover them up.

All 34 of Chile’s bishops offered their resignations to the Pope in May over the scandal. The pontiff accepted three resignations in June.
Police have raided offices and seized Church documents in the capital Santiago and the city of Rancagua as part of their investigation.
In September Pope Francis defrocked former priest Fernando Karadima, 88, for having sexually abused minors….

A leaked Church report in September revealed more than 3,600 children in Germany were assaulted by Catholic priests between 1946 and 2014.
Most of the victims were boys, and more than half were aged 13 or younger. And in July, Australian Catholic archbishop Philip Wilson was sentenced to 12 months in detention for concealing historic child sexual abuse – the most senior Catholic globally to be convicted of the crime….
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45850354

Feds subpoena Pennsylvania dioceses in Catholic clergy sex abuse investigation CBS/AP October 18, 2018 PHILADELPHIA

The Justice Department has issued subpoenas to at least seven of the eight dioceses in Pennsylvania as part of a federal probe into child sexual abuse inside the Roman Catholic Church. The Associated Press, citing two people familiar with the investigation who were not authorized to speak publicly, reports the subpoenas are seeking a trove of sensitive files and testimony from church leaders.

The intervention by the federal government opens a new front of legal peril for the Catholic Church, given that investigations into sexual abuse by clergy members have historically been handled exclusively by state and local authorities.

According to the people who spoke to the AP, U.S. Attorney William McSwain of Philadelphia, who issued the federal subpoenas last week, wants to know if priests, bishops, seminarians or others committed any federal crimes. McSwain was appointed by President Trump earlier this year.
He has asked for certain church leaders to testify before a federal grand jury in Philadelphia, though it could be months before that happens because of the time it takes to review the requested documents.

McSwain has also demanded the bishops turn over any evidence that anyone in their ranks took children across state lines for illicit purposes; sent sexual images or messages via phone or computer; instructed anyone not to contact police; reassigned suspected predators; or used money or other assets as part of the scandal.
The grand jury subpoenas also seek documents stored in “Secret Archives,” ”Historical Archives” or “Confidential Files,” and records related to the dioceses’ organizational charts, finances, insurance coverage, clergy assignments and treatment of priests, according to the AP’s sources.

While the subpoenas hint at possible charges of sexual exploitation of minors and fraud, legal experts said that if federal prosecutors can show that church leaders systematically covered up for child-molesting priests in the past five years, dioceses could also be charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, the law originally passed to bring down the Mafia.

A representative for McSwain declined to comment to the AP, as did a Justice Department spokeswoman. The Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
There was no indication the Justice Department is planning a nationwide investigation.
“This is the first time I have ever heard of a federal investigation into child sexual abuse in a Catholic diocese or church. This is a monumental moment for clergy sexual victims everywhere,” Mitchell Garabedian, the Boston-based plaintiffs’ lawyer who played a major role in uncovering the scandal in the Boston Archdiocese over a decade ago….
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pennsylvania-clergy-sex-abuse-catholic-church-federal-subpoenas-department-of-justice-2018-10-18/

A Wave of Child Sexual Abuse Accusations Against a Doctor, and Hospital Says It Knew By Christina Goldbaum Oct. 18, 2018
For almost 30 years, parents sought out Dr. Reginald Archibald when their children would not grow. They came to his clinic at The Rockefeller University Hospital, a prominent New York research institution, where he treated and studied children who were small for their age.

He also may have sexually abused many of them.
The hospital sent a letter last month to former patients of Dr. Archibald asking about their contact with him. Ten days later, on Oct. 5, it posted a statement online saying it had evidence of the doctor’s “inappropriate” behavior with some patients and that it first had learned of credible allegations against him in 2004. The letter went out to as many as 1,000 people, said a former patient who spoke with a hospital administrator….

The New York Times spoke with 17 people, most of them men, who said they were abused by Dr. Archibald when they were young boys or adolescents. Most of them learned of the possibility of other victims for the first time when they received the letter. A few, however, said they had filed complaints with the hospital or authorities in the past, but their allegations were not investigated….https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/nyregion/dr-reginald-archibald-rockefeller-abuse.html

Mexico violence: Remains of 166 found in Veracruz mass grave September 5, 2018 The skulls of at least 166 people have been found in a mass grave in Mexico’s eastern state of Veracruz. State prosecutor Jorge Winckler said the skulls and other human remains had been there for at least two years. The exact location is not being disclosed for security reasons, he added. Drug traffickers have used Veracruz as a dumping ground for their victims for many years. In March 2017, 250 skulls were found in another mass grave there….

Relatives of people who have disappeared in Mexico have long been campaigning for more to be done to help them find their loved ones.
Drug-related violence in Mexico has soared since 2006 when the army was deployed to fight the powerful cartels. Since then more than 200,000 people have been killed, including a record 28,702 last year.
Another 37,000 people are registered as missing.
Victims include cartel members but also migrants heading to the US who refuse to be recruited.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45442402

Chicago bishop who didn’t report child abuse allegations to police is living on archdiocese property by Marlena Baldacci and Dakin Andone, Sat September 8, 2018 (CNN)A bishop who admitted he never reported suspicions of child sexual abuse by priests is currently living in a historic mansion owned by the Archdiocese of Chicago.

In a 2007 deposition, Auxiliary Bishop Raymond Goedert told lawyers he never alerted law enforcement to allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy before providing the lawyers with the names of 25 clergy members who he knew had been accused of such behavior.

Today, 90-year-old Goedert is living at the Archbishop’s Residence, an historic three-story building made of “smooth red brick” with 19 chimneys, three of which are in use, according to the archdiocese’s website, which calls it “perhaps the largest and best-preserved building of its type in the Chicago area.”

Paula Waters, spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Chicago, said Goedert, who is retired, remains in “good standing because he never had a charge against him.”….

“He retired as a priest in good standing; he has been living at the house in good standing,” Waters said. “He’s not ministering to anyone now, and he followed procedures at the time for what they were supposed to do regarding priests facing child sex abuse allegations.” ….

While Goedert himself has not been accused of wrongdoing, an attorney who deposed him and who has represented alleged victims of priest abuse told CNN that the bishop’s actions — not reporting the allegations of abuse — point to a larger issue of how the Catholic Church handles child sexual abuse allegations.

The issue has been highlighted by the recent release of a Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing decades of sexual abuse by priests.
“He was just the one in Chicago that was following the playbook,” said the lawyer, Marc Pearlman, who has represented hundreds of sex abuse victims in the Chicago area….

Pearlman, one of the attorneys who deposed Goedert, told CNN his first impression of Goedert was that he was a “nice old man.”
“I say that not in defense of him, but that’s what makes this (scandal) so disturbing and alarming,” Pearlman told CNN on Friday.
“This is not about Bishop Goedert. There are hundreds, if not thousands, just like him in every archdiocese,” Pearlman continued. “He was just the one in Chicago that was following the playbook. It doesn’t matter if it’s Chicago, Joliet, Los Angeles, Boston. Everyone had a Father Goedert who did the same thing.”

Rather than being disciplined, Pearlman said, these priests were moved around and the allegations against them not reported to police, “at the expense of I can’t imagine how many children,” who would have been spared otherwise.
“As heinous as the sexual abuse crimes were,” he said, “the cover-up is worse.”
https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/08/us/chicago-catholic-bishop-never-reported-abuse/index.html

German Catholic priests ‘abused thousands of children’
More than 3,600 children in Germany were assaulted by Roman Catholic priests between 1946 and 2014, a leaked report has revealed.
The study was commissioned by the Church itself, and was due to be published on 25 September.
According to the report, some 1,670 clergymen in Germany committed some form of sex attack on 3,677 minors, German outlet Spiegel Online reported.

A Church spokesman said it was “dismayed and ashamed” by the findings.
The report is the latest in a long series of revelations that have uncovered decades of sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests around the world.

According to the new study, only 38% of the alleged perpetrators were prosecuted with most facing only minor disciplinary procedures, German media said. About one in six cases involved rape.
Most of the victims were boys, and more than half were aged 13 or younger.
Predatory clerics were often moved to new communities, where no warning was issued about their actions.

The study was compiled by three German universities, using 38,000 documents from 27 German dioceses. Its authors said the true extent of the abuse may be even greater, as some records were “destroyed or manipulated”…. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45500072

Rotherham child sexual abuse: Gang of seven guilty 29 October 2018
Seven men have been found guilty of grooming and exploiting young girls, including one who was sexually abused by “at least 100 Asian men” before the age of 16.

Sheffield Crown Court heard how the men targeted and exploited the teenagers before subjecting them to acts of a “degrading and violent nature”.
They abused five young girls over a seven year period in Rotherham.

The gang were convicted of offences including rape and indecent assault.
One girl described being bitten and raped by two of the men in Sherwood Forest while “high as a kite” on drugs….

The convictions are the latest to come out of Operation Stovewood, the National Crime Agency’s (NCA) investigation into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, which has identified more than 1,500 victims….
During a trial lasting more than eight weeks the jury heard the men, who are all of British Pakistani heritage, preyed on the girls’ vulnerability before they were sexually assaulted and passed on to other men.

Prosecutor Michelle Colborne QC said the girls had been “lured by the excitement of friendship with older Asian youths” but were then “targeted, sexualised and in some instances subjected to acts of a degrading and violent nature”.

She said: “None of them had the maturity to understand that they were being groomed and exploited, often believing that sex of some kind was a necessary price for friendship.”….
Operation Stovewood is the largest law enforcement investigation into non-familial child sexual exploitation in the UK.
It began in 2014 after a report found at least 1,400 children in Rotherham were the victims of abuse between 1997 and 2013.

It is run by the NCA, which is working with 296 alleged victims, has identified 151 suspects and is running 22 ongoing investigations.
More than 150 officers work on the operation and there are plans to recruit another 100.
It is jointly funded by South Yorkshire Police and the Home Office and when up to full strength will cost £15m a year to run. It has led to 14 convictions so far, and 24 more people have been charged with offences. The court head the men used alcohol, drugs, threats and violence to control the girls…. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-45980210

Brett Kavanaugh letter’s contents are revealed By Bob Fredericks September 14, 2018

The woman who wrote a letter to lawmakers accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct claimed he held her down and tried to force himself on her during an alcohol-fueled high school party in the ’80s, according to a New Yorker article published on Friday.

Kavanaugh was a student at the Jesuit-run Georgetown Preparatory School in Bethesda, Maryland, and met the woman, who attended a nearby high school, at the party, according to the report, authored by Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer.

The woman wrote that Kavanaugh held her down and tried to force himself on her after he and a pal, who both had been drinking, turned up the volume on music that was playing to drown out her protests, the magazine reported.
Kavanaugh, she said, also covered her mouth with his hand, but she was eventually able to get free and flee.
Even though the alleged incident took place decades ago, the woman said that the memory was so troubling, she had to seek psychological treatment.

The woman, who did not want to be identified, first approached California Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo in July not long after President Trump nominated Kavanaugh to fill the seat of retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Eshoo turned it over to California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, who said Thursday she had handed it over to the Justice Department.
Kavanaugh, 53, denied that the incident ever happened.

“I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time,” he said in a statement.
Kavanaugh’s buddy from the party said he had “no recollection of that,” according to the magazine.
Since he was nominated and was in the headlines, the woman told friends that the development had revived the painful memories of the incident and that she was struggling over whether to go public….
https://nypost.com/2018/09/14/brett-kavanaugh-letters-contents-are-revealed/

Dianne Feinstein Refers a Kavanaugh Matter to Federal Investigators
By Nicholas Fandos and Catie Edmondson Sept. 13, 2018

WASHINGTON — The senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee referred information involving Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, to federal investigators on Thursday, but the senator declined to make public what the matter involved.
Two officials familiar with the matter say the incident involved possible sexual misconduct between Judge Kavanaugh and a woman when they were both in high school. They spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

The statement by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California came a week before the Judiciary Committee is to vote on his nomination. “I have received information from an individual concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court,” Ms. Feinstein said in a statement. “That individual strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision. I have, however, referred the matter to federal investigative authorities.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/us/politics/brett-kavanaugh-dianne-feinstein.html

Secret letter accuses Brett Kavanaugh of decades-old sexual misconduct
By Bob Fredericks September 13, 2018

Democrat Sen. Diane Feinstein at the last minute sent a letter to the Justice Department describing allegations of sexual misconduct involving Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and a woman — when they were both high school students.

Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the information came from a woman who wanted to remain anonymous, and declined to detail the letter’s contents — even to her annoyed fellow Dems.

But according to a pair of vague reports in The New York Times and The Intercept that cited multiple sources, the letter includes the allegations against the 53-year-old Trump nominee.
“I have received information from an individual concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court,” Feinstein said in a statement.

“That individual strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision. I have, however, referred the matter to federal investigative authorities.”

The FBI said it was not investigating the judge over the letter, CNN reported Thursday night.
The information came in a letter that was first sent to the office of California Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo, who passed it along to Feinstein during the summer. It was unclear why she waited until now to pass it along to the feds.
The woman making the claims is being represented by Debra Katz, a lawyer who works with #MeToo survivors, The Intercept reported.
Joseph Abboud, a lawyer at Katz’s firm, said the firm was declining to comment….
https://nypost.com/2018/09/13/secret-letter-may-accuse-brett-kavanaugh-of-sexual-misconduct/

Brett Kavanaugh’s Accuser Offers Corroborating Data Including A Lie Detector Test by Steph Bazzle 9/18/16

Allegations that Trump’s SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh attempted to rape a woman when he was in high school emerged this past week. Now his formerly anonymous accuser is coming forward, has identified herself, provided evidence corroborating her story, and taken a lie detector test, administrated by a former FBI agent.

The initial complaint, shared in a confidential letter to Diane Feinstein, asserted that Kavanaugh had held down a woman and covered her mouth to stifle her complaints, and he or another person in the room had turned up music to keep others from hearing, while he tried to force himself on her. There has been much controversy around this initial missive, with a lot of focus on the author’s anonymity.

Now Kavanaugh’s accuser has decided to no longer remain anonymous. Her name is Christine Blasey Ford, and according to the Washington Post, she’s a research psychologist and professor at Palo Alto University and has documentation to prove she’s spoken about the incident before. In fact, in 2012, she discussed the attack during therapy with her husband. Therapist’s notes describe the named attacker as a student “from an elitist boys’ school,” and the attack as an attempted rape.

Ford took a polygraph test in early August, then decided to remain anonymous, despite the results affirming her honesty. However, her identity leaked, and reporters tried to question her. She decided she would come forward on her own terms.
Her husband confirms her story, saying he recalls her mentioning Kavanaugh by name. According to Heavy, the all-girls school that Ford attended was only about 7 miles from the all-boys school Kavanaugh attended, belying claims that his attendance at a gender-segregated school is a defense against the accusation.

As Ford describes the attack, another student was in the room at the time, Kavanaugh’s classmate Mark Judge. Judge’s denial relies on his assertion that he “never saw Brett act that way.” However, Slate points out that Judge has written about his struggle with alcoholism, including black-out drunkenness, fictionalizing the name of the school he attended and referring to another individual who he names “Bart O’Kavanaugh,” who partook in enough alcohol to vomit in someone else’s vehicle and pass out.

Coming forward to the Washington Post, Ford says she remembers the attack to be in 1982, when she was 15 and Kavanaugh was 17. She says that she was wearing a one-piece swimsuit and Kavanaugh was drunkenly trying to pull it off of her against her will. She says that Judge and Kavanaugh laughed during the attack, and when Judge jumped on them at one point, she was able to wriggle free and escape the room….
https://hillreporter.com/brett-kavanaughs-accuser-comes-forward-with-corroborating-data-takes-polygraph-lie-detector-7306

Washington Post: Kavanaugh accuser comes forward
By Eli Watkins and Ariane de Vogue, CNN Sun September 16, 2018

Washington (CNN)A woman accusing Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct more than 30 years ago came forward publicly Sunday, detailing her allegations about the Supreme Court nominee in an interview with The Washington Post.
The paper said Christine Blasey Ford, a professor in California, reached out to the Post in July as Kavanaugh’s name appeared on short lists to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, but she opted not to speak with the Post on the record for weeks. As her private outreach to California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein became public over the past week, she decided to go ahead and speak out herself, Sunday’s report said.
“Now I feel like my civic responsibility is outweighing my anguish and terror about retaliation,” Ford told the Post.

Ford said she kept silent about the alleged incident until she was in couples’ therapy with her husband in 2012. Her husband, Russell Ford, recalled to the Post that she talked during their 2012 sessions about the incident and said she had mentioned Kavanaugh’s last name and that he was a federal judge who might be on the Supreme Court eventually.

In a statement on Friday, Kavanaugh denied the reported allegations that while at a party during his time in high school, he pushed a woman into a room, locked the door to the room along with another male and tried to take off the woman’s clothes.

“I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time,” his statement said….
“Kavanaugh physically pushed me into a bedroom as I was headed for a bathroom up a short stairwell from the living room,” read the letter. “They locked the door and played loud music precluding any successful attempt to yell for help. Kavanaugh was on top of me while laughing with REDACTED, who periodically jumped onto Kavanaugh. They both laughed as Kavanaugh tried to disrobe me in their highly inebriated state. With Kavanaugh’s hand over my mouth I feared he may inadvertently kill me.”….
https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/16/politics/christine-blasey-ford-brett-kavanaugh/index.html

Hearing Set for Monday to Hear Kavanaugh and His Accuser President Trump defended the qualifications of his Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, after a woman accused him of sexual assault. By Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Julie Hirschfeld Davis Sept. 17, 2018

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, under mounting pressure from senators of his own party, will call President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, and the woman who has accused him of sexual assault before the committee on Monday for extraordinary public hearings only weeks before the midterm elections.

In setting the hearing, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, backed down from a committee vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination, planned for this Thursday, and pushed a confirmation once seen as inevitable into limbo.

The hearing with Judge Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, a research psychologist in Northern California, sets up a potentially explosive public showdown that carries unmistakable echoes of the 1991 testimony of Anita Hill, who accused the future Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment in an episode that riveted the nation and ushered a slew of women into public office. It will play out against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement, which has energized Democratic women across the United States, in an institution, the Senate, that is more than three-quarters male.
Mr. Trump vigorously defended his nominee on Monday, calling him an “outstanding” judge with an unblemished record, and dismissing as “ridiculous” the prospect that Judge Kavanaugh might withdraw his nomination….

On Monday evening, The Mercury News in California published the accounts of two friends of Dr. Blasey’s who said that she told them in July that she was going forward with her accusations.
It will be up to Judge Kavanaugh to convince wavering senators of his innocence. Both Senators Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, said Monday that if true, Dr. Blasey’s accusations would disqualify the nominee from the Supreme Court….

Both in the letter to Ms. Feinstein and in an interview published Sunday by The Washington Post, Dr. Blasey said that during a gathering of teenagers at a private home in suburban Montgomery County, Md., the future Judge Kavanaugh, along with a friend, pushed her into a bedroom as she was making her way to a bathroom. She said the young Mr. Kavanaugh jumped on top of her, grinding his body against hers as he tried to remove her clothing. When she tried to scream, she said, he clapped his hand over her mouth to muffle the cries….
“They both laughed as Kavanaugh tried to disrobe me in their highly inebriated state,” she wrote in the letter, made public Monday by CNN. “With Kavanaugh’s hand over my mouth I feared he may inadvertently kill me.”

Her lawyer, Debra Katz, said in an interview that Dr. Blasey was ready to go before the committee. “We hope that this hearing is fair and not another weaponized attack on a woman who has come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against a powerful man,” Ms. Katz said….
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/us/politics/kavanaugh-allegations-ford-palo-alto.html

Mark Judge, Kavanaugh’s high school classmate, details high school parties in past writings By Sophie Tatum, CNN Mon September 17, 2018

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, is being accused of sexually and physically assaulting a 15-year-old girl at a party during his high school years.

Kavanaugh has repeatedly denied the allegations, but his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, says there was one other person in the room when the alleged incident took place: Kavanaugh’s then-classmate, Mark Judge.

The fate of Kavanaugh’s nomination is hanging in the balance as Republicans and Democrats debate allowing a full investigation to take place.
Judge, a journalist and filmmaker, has also denied that the incident took place.

“It’s just absolutely nuts. I never saw Brett act that way,” Judge told The Weekly Standard in an interview on Friday. CNN has been unable to reach Judge for comment despite repeated attempts.

Now that Judge’s recollection of the alleged event could become a focal point for all those looking into the accusation, flags have been raised regarding his own past writings.

Judge wrote the book “Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk,” where he details his experiences of extensive drinking while attending Georgetown Preparatory School.

Judge writes that he is “shocked” about what he got away with in high school — recalling beach parties that hundreds of people would attend.
At another point he describes his high school as “positively swimming in alcohol.”

Judge also references a “Bart O’Kavanaugh,” who he writes vomited in someone’s car. It has not been confirmed whether this is a reference to Kavanaugh….

Georgetown Preparatory School yearbook
Attorney Seth Berenzweig, a Virginia-based lawyer who otherwise has no connection to Kavanaugh or the allegations, was given a copy of the high school’s 1983 yearbook by an individual who requested anonymity. The yearbook features captions such as “Do these guys beat their wives?” and “Prep parties raise question of legality.”
In the yearbook, Judge’s page included the quote: “Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs,” citing Sir Noel Coward….
https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/17/politics/mark-judge-brett-kavanaugh-high-school/index.html

Christine Blasey Ford: Kavanaugh accuser ‘faces death threats’

The woman who accuses US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of attempting to rape her will not testify to the Senate next week, says her lawyer. Christine Blasey Ford’s attorney told CNN her client has been “deflecting death threats and harassment”. Lawyer Lisa Banks said before her client goes to Congress, she wants an FBI investigation into Judge Kavanaugh. The nominee, who denies the claim, has met officials at the White House for a second day….

Prof Ford, a psychology lecturer in California, has accused Judge Kavanaugh of drunkenly trying to remove her clothing in 1982 when they were both teenagers in a Washington DC suburb.
Judge Kavanaugh, 53, has called the allegation “completely false.”…

Prof Ford’s legal team say they have written to Senate Judiciary Committee declining its offer to testify. Her lawyer told CNN on Tuesday night: “It’s premature to talk about a hearing on Monday because she [Prof Ford] has been dealing with the threats, the harassment and the safety of her family and that’s what she’s been focused on for the last couple of days.”….

She said that since going public with her allegation in the Washington Post on Sunday, Prof Ford has been trying to work out where her family are going to sleep at night.
The legal team’s letter says that Prof Ford’s family has been forced to move out of their home, her email has been hacked and she has been impersonated online….

The correspondence says “a full investigation by law enforcement officials will ensure that the crucial facts and witnesses in this matter are assessed in a non-partisan manner, and that the Committee is fully informed before conducting any hearing or making any decisions”.
The development comes a day after Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Chuck Grassley announced plans for the hearing…. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45568450

Yale roommate says Kavanaugh lied under oath about drinking and yearbook
By Kate Sullivan Wed October 3, 2018 Washington (CNN)

James Roche, one of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s freshman year roommates at Yale, said Wednesday that Kavanaugh lied under oath about his drinking and about the meaning of his yearbook entries.
In an op-ed for Slate, Roche writes, “Brett Kavanaugh stood up under oath and lied about his drinking and about the meaning of words in his yearbook. He did so baldly, without hesitation or reservation.”

“In his words and his behavior, Judge Kavanaugh has shown contempt for the truth, for the process, for the rule of law, and for accountability,” Roche added. “His willingness to lie to avoid embarrassment throws doubt on his denials about the larger questions of sexual assault.”
Kavanaugh testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he has never been blackout drunk. He was appearing before senators to answer an accusation from California professor Christine Blasey Ford that he sexually assaulted her when they were both in high school in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh denies the allegation and says he has no memory of the party where Ford says the incident happened.

Roche says he believes his friend Deborah Ramirez, who has accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her at a college dorm party. He told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Wednesday night that “there is zero chance that she is making up this story.” Kavanaugh has denied Ramirez’s allegation. CNN has reached out to the White House for reaction to Roche’s comments.
Roche told CNN, “I saw him both what I would consider blackout drunk and also dealing with the repercussions of that in the morning.”

“I didn’t socialize with Brett,” Roche said. “He would come home and he was incoherent, stumbling, he would sometimes be singing, he occasionally would wear this — I think it was an old leather football helmet — and he would throw up, and then in the morning would have a lot of trouble getting out of bed.”….

Roche writes he does not know if Kavanaugh attacked Ford in high school or exposed himself to Ramirez in college, “But I can say that he lied under oath.”

In Roche’s appearance on “Anderson Cooper 360,” he said he was “shocked” when he heard Kavanaugh say “boofing” meant flatulence and “Devil’s Triangle” was a drinking game, “because those words were commonly used and they were references to sexual activities. … I heard them talking about it regularly. I think that contributed to some of my feelings about the fact that these guys treated women in a way that I didn’t like.”
“We were in a room together — our beds were 10 feet apart for a couple of months,” Roche told Cooper. “And what struck me and made me more interested in speaking out about it is not only did I know that he wasn’t telling, you know, the truth, I knew that he knew that he wasn’t telling the truth.”

Roche told CNN his memory of Kavanaugh is that “he was on the far edge of this — he was notably heavier in his drinking than other people.”….
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/03/politics/yale-roommate-kavanaugh-cnntv/index.html

Kavanaugh’s college roommate: He was lying CNN Published on Oct 3, 2018 James Roche, the college roommate of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, speaks to CNN’s Anderson Cooper about his experience with Kavanaugh at Yale. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQGrTMLYTCI

How Trauma Affects Memory: Scientists Weigh In On The Kavanaugh Hearing
September 28, 2018 Rhitu Chatterjee

In Thursday’s testimony at Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, Christine Blasey Ford alleged Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party in 1982, when she was 15 years old and he was 17.

Kavanaugh staunchly denied these allegations.
But memory is fallible. A question on many people’s minds is, how well can anyone recall something that happened over 35 years ago?
Pretty well, say scientists, if the memory is of a traumatic event. That’s because of the key role emotions play in making and storing memories.
On any given day, our brains store or “encode” only some of the things we experience. “What we pay attention to is what’s more likely to get encoded,” says Jim Hopper, a teaching associate in psychology at Harvard University and a consultant on sexual assault and trauma.
A region of the brain called the hippocampus plays an important role in this process. Ford referred to the hippocampus when questioned by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., about how she was so sure that Kavanaugh was the perpetrator of the alleged assault.

“The hippocampus certainly plays a role in taking things into short-term memory and then transferring them and consolidating them into long-term memories,” says Hopper.
If an event elicits an emotional reaction in us, then it’s more likely to make it into our memory. “Things that have more emotional significance tend to get more encoded,” he says.

And when something elicits an intense negative emotion, like a trauma, it’s even more likely to be encoded in the brain….
That’s because a high-stress state “alters the function of the hippocampus and puts it into a super-encoding mode,” says Hopper, especially early on during an event. And “the central details [of the event] get burned into their memory and they may never forget them.”….

However, this doesn’t mean that these memories include every detail of the event. The brain holds on to the most important stuff at the expense of the peripheral details….
Another factor that affects how memories are stored is alcohol use.

“Generally alcohol can make people forget things,” says Mary Beth Miller, a clinical psychologist at the University of Missouri, Columbia who has studied the impact of alcohol consumption on making and retrieving memories.
Earlier this month, Ford told The Washington Post that she remembers Kavanaugh being “stumbling drunk” whereas she recalls having one beer that night.

Other accusers who did not testify Thursday have also suggested Kavanaugh was part of a group of friends who indulged in heavy drinking in the 1980s….
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/28/652524372/how-trauma-affects-memory-scientists-weigh-in-on-the-kavanaugh-hearing

Poll: More Believe Ford Than Kavanaugh, A Cultural Shift From 1991
October 3, 2018 Domenico Montanaro

After a day of wrenching testimony from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford — who has accused him of sexual assault in high school — more Americans say they believe Ford’s account over Kavanaugh’s denials, according to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released Wednesday.
In choosing who is telling the truth, 45 percent said Ford is, up from 32 percent ahead of her Sept. 27 testimony. A third (33 percent) said Kavanaugh is the one telling the truth, up slightly from 26 percent before he testified but not as much of a rise as for Ford.

The daylong hearing appears to have been influential in helping people decide who was telling the truth. Before the hearing, 42 percent said they were unsure whom to believe. Now, just 22 percent are unsure.
The results represent a shift from 1991, when more people said they believed then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas over Anita Hill. Hill accused Thomas of sexual harassment in the workplace. A 1991 CBS/New York Times poll, also conducted days after their dramatic, televised Capitol Hill testimonies, found that 58 percent believed Thomas more, as opposed to just 24 percent who said Hill.

“If it remains ‘he said, she said,’ the benefit of the doubt is very different than 1991, and it goes to Ford not Kavanaugh,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the poll. “It shows the reaction to the testimony and does show an underlying change in attitude than 27 years ago.”….
https://www.npr.org/2018/10/03/654054108/poll-more-believe-ford-than-kavanaugh-a-cultural-shift-from-1991

The truth about false assault accusations by women Katty Kay Presenter, BBC World News 18 September 2018 According to various academic studies over the past 20 years, only 2-10% of rape accusations are fake (Prof Ford’s lawyer says she believes this was attempted rape).

Two to 10% is too many, but it is not a big proportion of the total. Fake rape accusations get a lot of attention….
False rape accusations very rarely lead to convictions or wrongful jail time.
A useful article in Quartz by Sandra Newman points to research from the British Home Office showing that in the early 2000s, of the 216 cases that were classified as false allegations, only six led to an arrest.

Of those, only two had charges brought against them and those two were found to be false. …
The idea that lots of men are going to prison because they’ve been falsely accused of rape isn’t supported by the facts.
Moreover, official figures suggest the number of rapes and sexual assaults which are never reported or prosecuted far outweighs the number of men convicted of rape because of fake accusations.

Indeed it far outweighs the number of fake accusations, period.
Figures from the US Bureau of Justice Statistics suggest only 35% of all sexual assaults are even reported to the police….
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45565684

What kind of person makes false rape accusations?
By Sandra Newman May 11, 2017

Innocent men rarely face rape charges
….Let’s start with the idea that false rape accusations ruin lives, and are therefore a universal risk to men. Generally, feminists dismiss this idea by arguing that false accusations are rare—only between 2% and 10% of all reports are estimated to be false. What’s equally important to know, however, is that false rape accusations almost never have serious consequences.

This may be hard to believe, especially considering that rape is a felony, punishable with years of prison. However—to start with this worst-case scenario—it’s exceedingly rare for a false rape allegation to end in prison time. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, since records began in 1989, in the US there are only 52 cases where men convicted of sexual assault were exonerated because it turned out they were falsely accused. By way of comparison, in the same period, there are 790 cases in which people were exonerated for murder.

Furthermore, in the most detailed study ever conducted of sexual assault reports to police, undertaken for the British Home Office in the early 2000s, out of 216 complaints that were classified as false, only 126 had even gotten to the stage where the accuser lodged a formal complaint. Only 39 complainants named a suspect. Only six cases led to an arrest, and only two led to charges being brought before they were ultimately deemed false. (Here, as elsewhere, it has to be assumed that some unknown percentage of the cases classified as false actually involved real rapes; what they don’t involve is countless innocent men’s lives being ruined.)

So the evidence suggests that even in the rare case where a man is the subject of a false rape complaint, chances are that the charges will be dropped without him ever learning about the allegations. This raises an obvious question: Why would false accusers go through the trouble of making a report to police, only to instantly withdraw it?…
https://qz.com/980766/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations/

Accuser’s schoolmate says she recalls hearing of alleged Kavanaugh incident
Christina King Miranda says she recalls it being discussed at their school, but has no first-hand knowledge of the alleged assault by Brett Kavanaugh. by Ken Dilanian, Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Popken / Sep.19.2018

WASHINGTON — A former schoolmate of Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser wrote a Facebook post saying she recalls hearing about the alleged assault involving Kavanaugh, though she says she has no first-hand information to corroborate the accuser’s claims.

“Christine Blasey Ford was a year or so behind me,” wrote the woman, Cristina Miranda King, who now works as a performing arts curator in Mexico City. “I did not know her personally but I remember her. This incident did happen.”
She added, “Many of us heard a buzz about it indirectly with few specific details….”
Ford, a research psychologist in Northern California, has accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her more than 30 years ago at a drunken high school party. He denies the allegation.

The assertion that other people heard about and discussed an incident between Ford and Kavanaugh at the time it is alleged to have happened could loom as an important factor in any investigation of the claim….
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/accuser-s-schoolmate-says-she-recalls-hearing-alleged-kavanaugh-incident-n911111

Brett Kavanaugh Liked Female Clerks Who Looked A ‘Certain Way,’ Yale Student Was Told
Yale professor and “Tiger Mom” Amy Chua, who’s a Kavanaugh cheerleader, told the young woman to look “outgoing.” By Emily Peck A few years ago, as she was prepping to interview for a judicial clerkship, a student at Yale Law School received a troubling combination of warning and advice from her professors about one federal judge in particular: Brett Kavanaugh, she was told, liked his female clerks to have a “certain look.”

Right now Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court hangs in the balance as he faces an accusation that he sexually assaulted a girl in high school.

The professors proffering the advice are themselves well-known. Both Jed Rubenfeld and his wife, Amy Chua, author of the controversial 2011 book The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, told this woman about Kavanaugh’s preferences. Then, Kavanaugh was simply known as a prestigious judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Though neither said the judge did anything untoward regarding the women he worked with, the student found their counsel off-putting.
“I had mixed feelings,” said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous due to privacy concerns. “On the one hand, it’s a yellow flag; on the other hand, phew, I hadn’t heard anything else.”

Her first inkling that there might be issues with Kavanaugh came from Rubenfeld in a conversation about various judges with whom she might work. Rubenfeld took care to warn her about two judges in particular: First, Alex Kozinski, then a judge on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, was known to sexually harass his clerks, he told her. (Kozinski retired in December amid accusations of harassment.) The other was Kavanaugh. Though the judge was known to hire female clerks who had a “certain look,” Rubenfeld told her, he emphasized that he had heard nothing else untoward.

“He did not say what the ‘certain look’ was. I did not ask,” the woman said. “It was very clear to me that he was talking about physical appearance, because it was phrased as a warning ? and because it came after the warning about Judge Kozinski.”….
“For the more than ten years I’ve known him, Judge Kavanaugh’s first and only litmus test in hiring has been excellence,” Chua told HuffPost in a response to a request for comment from both professors…. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/yale-student-brett-kavanaugh-clerkship-look_us_5ba2f051e4b0181540d9e2bb

Anita Hill: New Kavanaugh investigation is necessary
Hill doubts Senate staffers “are qualified to carry out this investigation in a neutral fashion.” by Dennis Romero Sep.19.2018

Anita Hill on Wednesday lent support to the accuser of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, offering her own experience before the Senate Judiciary Committee 27 years ago as evidence that the process of airing sexual allegations will not be fair.
“My belief is that, without an investigation, there cannot be an effective hearing,” Hill told Judy Woodruff of “PBS NewsHour.”

Accuser Christine Blasey Ford has stood fast against a much-touted Monday committee hearing without the FBI investigating her claim first. The California research psychologist said Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her more than 30 years ago at a drunken high school party.
He denies the allegation and, according to Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, believes Ford has him mixed up with someone else.

Hill alleged that when she worked for Clarence Thomas before he became a Supreme Court Justice in 1991 he repeatedly asked her on dates and tried to engage in conversations about sex and adult video. When the all-male Senate Judiciary Committee aired the allegations the focus was on Hill and lewd details about what she recalled.

During the 1991 hearing, Hill said, Arlen Specter, the late Senator from Pennsylvania, “wasn’t interested really in pursuing the truth of my testimony, but was more interested in discrediting me.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/anita-hill-new-kavanaugh-investigation-necessary-n911266

Senate Democrats Investigate a New Allegation of Sexual Misconduct, from Brett Kavanaugh’s College Years By Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer September 23, 2018

As Senate Republicans press for a swift vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Senate Democrats are investigating a new allegation of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh. The claim dates to the 1983-84 academic school year, when Kavanaugh was a freshman at Yale University. The offices of at least four Democratic senators have received information about the allegation, and at least two have begun investigating it. Senior Republican staffers also learned of the allegation last week and, in conversations with The New Yorker, expressed concern about its potential impact on Kavanaugh’s nomination. Soon after, Senate Republicans issued renewed calls to accelerate the timing of a committee vote. The Democratic Senate offices reviewing the allegations believe that they merit further investigation. “This is another serious, credible, and disturbing allegation against Brett Kavanaugh. It should be fully investigated,” Senator Mazie Hirono, of Hawaii, said. An aide in one of the other Senate offices added, “These allegations seem credible, and we’re taking them very seriously. If established, they’re clearly disqualifying.”

The woman at the center of the story, Deborah Ramirez, who is fifty-three, attended Yale with Kavanaugh, where she studied sociology and psychology. Later, she spent years working for an organization that supports victims of domestic violence. The New Yorker contacted Ramirez after learning of her possible involvement in an incident involving Kavanaugh. The allegation was conveyed to Democratic senators by a civil-rights lawyer. For Ramirez, the sudden attention has been unwelcome, and prompted difficult choices. She was at first hesitant to speak publicly, partly because her memories contained gaps because she had been drinking at the time of the alleged incident. In her initial conversations with The New Yorker, she was reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty. After six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney, Ramirez said that she felt confident enough of her recollections to say that she remembers Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away. Ramirez is now calling for the F.B.I. to investigate Kavanaugh’s role in the incident. “I would think an F.B.I. investigation would be warranted,” she said.

In a statement, Kavanaugh wrote, “This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen. The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so. This is a smear, plain and simple. I look forward to testifying on Thursday about the truth, and defending my good name—and the reputation for character and integrity I have spent a lifetime building—against these last-minute allegations.”….

Ramirez said that, when both she and Kavanaugh were freshmen at Yale, she was invited by a friend on the women’s soccer team to a dorm-room party. She recalled that the party took place in a suite at Lawrance Hall, in the part of Yale known as Old Campus, and that a small group of students decided to play a drinking game together. “We were sitting in a circle,” she said. “People would pick who drank.” Ramirez was chosen repeatedly, she said, and quickly became inebriated. At one point, she said, a male student pointed a gag plastic penis in her direction. Later, she said, she was on the floor, foggy and slurring her words, as that male student and another stood nearby. (Ramirez identified the two male onlookers, but, at her request, The New Yorker is not naming them.)

A third male student then exposed himself to her. “I remember a penis being in front of my face,” she said. “I knew that’s not what I wanted, even in that state of mind.” She recalled remarking, “That’s not a real penis,” and the other students laughing at her confusion and taunting her, one encouraging her to “kiss it.” She said that she pushed the person away, touching it in the process. Ramirez, who was raised a devout Catholic, in Connecticut, said that she was shaken. “I wasn’t going to touch a penis until I was married,” she said. “I was embarrassed and ashamed and humiliated.” She remembers Kavanaugh standing to her right and laughing, pulling up his pants. “Brett was laughing,” she said. “I can still see his face, and his hips coming forward, like when you pull up your pants.” She recalled another male student shouting about the incident. “Somebody yelled down the hall, ‘Brett Kavanaugh just put his penis in Debbie’s face,’ ” she said. “It was his full name. I don’t think it was just ‘Brett.’ And I remember hearing and being mortified that this was out there.”

Ramirez acknowledged that there are significant gaps in her memories of the evening, and that, if she ever presents her story to the F.B.I. or members of the Senate, she will inevitably be pressed on her motivation for coming forward after so many years, and questioned about her memory, given her drinking at the party.
And yet, after several days of considering the matter carefully, she said, “I’m confident about the pants coming up, and I’m confident about Brett being there.” Ramirez said that what has stayed with her most forcefully is the memory of laughter at her expense from Kavanaugh and the other students. “It was kind of a joke,” she recalled. “And now it’s clear to me it wasn’t a joke.”….

A classmate of Ramirez’s, who declined to be identified because of the partisan battle over Kavanaugh’s nomination, said that another student told him about the incident either on the night of the party or in the next day or two. The classmate said that he is “one-hundred-per-cent sure” that he was told at the time that Kavanaugh was the student who exposed himself to Ramirez. He independently recalled many of the same details offered by Ramirez, including that a male student had encouraged Kavanaugh as he exposed himself. The classmate, like Ramirez, recalled that the party took place in a common room on the first floor in Entryway B of Lawrance Hall, during their freshman year. “I’ve known this all along,” he said. “It’s been on my mind all these years when his name came up. It was a big deal.” The story stayed with him, he said, because it was disturbing and seemed outside the bounds of typically acceptable behavior, even during heavy drinking at parties on campus. The classmate said that he had been shocked, but not necessarily surprised, because the social group to which Kavanaugh belonged often drank to excess. He recalled Kavanaugh as “relatively shy” until he drank, at which point he said that Kavanaugh could become “aggressive and even belligerent.”
Another classmate, Richard Oh, an emergency-room doctor in California, recalled overhearing, soon after the party, a female student tearfully recounting to another student an incident at a party involving a gag with a fake penis, followed by a male student exposing himself. Oh is not certain of the identity of the female student. Ramirez told her mother and sister about an upsetting incident at the time, but did not describe the details to either due to her embarrassment.

Mark Krasberg, an assistant professor of neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico who was also a member of Kavanaugh and Ramirez’s class at Yale, said Kavanaugh’s college behavior had become a topic of discussion among former Yale students soon after Kavanaugh’s nomination. In one e-mail that Krasberg received in September, the classmate who recalled hearing about the incident with Ramirez alluded to the allegation and wrote that it “would qualify as a sexual assault,” he speculated, “if it’s true.”….
Several other classmates said that they believed Ramirez to be credible and honest, and vouched for her integrity. James Roche was roommates with Kavanaugh at the time of the alleged incident and is now the C.E.O. of a software company in San Francisco. “Debbie and I became close friends shortly after we both arrived at Yale,” he said. “She stood out as being exceptionally honest and gentle. I cannot imagine her making this up.” He said that he never witnessed Kavanaugh engage in any sexual misconduct, but did recall him being “frequently, incoherently drunk.” He described Ramirez as a vulnerable outsider. “Is it believable that she was alone with a wolfy group of guys who thought it was funny to sexually torment a girl like Debbie? Yeah, definitely. Is it believable that Kavanaugh was one of them? Yes.” Another acquaintance from college, Jennifer Klaus, similarly said that she considered the allegation plausible, adding, “Debbie’s always been a very truthful, kind—almost to the point of being selfless—individual.” A third classmate, who Ramirez thought had attended the party, said that she was not present at the incident. The former student, who asked not to be named, said that she also found Ramirez credible….

While at Yale, Kavanaugh became a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, or “DKE,” which several students said was known for its wild and, in the view of some critics, misogynistic parties. Kavanaugh was also a member of an all-male secret society, Truth and Courage, which was popularly known by the nickname “Tit and Clit.”….

Her attorney, Garnett, said that he and Ramirez had not yet decided when and how she would convey the details of her allegation to the Senate Judiciary Committee and whether new counsel would represent her in Washington. “We’re carefully evaluating what the appropriate next steps would be,” he said. They both said that an F.B.I. investigation of the matter was merited. “I do believe an F.B.I. investigation of this kind of character-related information would be appropriate, and would be an effective way to relay the information to the committee,” Garnett said. Of Ramirez, he added, “She’s as careful and credible a witness as I’ve encountered in thirty-six years of practicing law.” Ramirez said that she hoped an investigation could be carried out before the committee voted on Kavanaugh’s nomination. “At least look at it,” she said of her claim. “At least check it out.” https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/senate-democrats-investigate-a-new-allegation-of-sexual-misconduct-from-the-supreme-court-nominee-brett-kavanaughs-college-years-deborah-ramirez

Kavanaugh Denies Fresh Harassment Allegations From College Classmate
September 23, 2018 Kelsey Snell, Brett Neely
Days before the Senate is set to hear from a woman who alleges Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh attempted to sexually assault her while in high school, Kavanaugh is denying fresh accusations from a college classmate who also alleges he acted inappropriately towards her.
In a story published Sunday evening by The New Yorker, Deborah Ramirez says Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a drunken party while both were first year students at Yale University.

“It was kind of a joke,” Ramirez told the magazine. “And now it’s clear to me it wasn’t a joke.”
Kavanaugh denied the allegation in a statement released by the White House.
“This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen,” Kavanaugh said. “The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so. This is a smear, plain and simple.”
The fresh allegation comes as the Senate Judiciary Committee is preparing to hear testimony from another woman, Christine Blasey Ford, who alleges that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a high school party more than 30 years ago. The two incidents are alleged to have occurred within just a few years of one another. Kavanaugh also denies those allegations.

Ford is set to testify before the Judiciary Committee about her allegation on Thursday. The politically charged hearing has already been criticized by Democrats who are calling for an FBI investigation into Kavanaugh’s conduct.
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the committee, sent a letter to committee chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Sunday evening asking that all proceedings related to Kavanaugh’s nomination be suspended….
https://www.npr.org/2018/09/23/650979665/kavanaugh-denies-fresh-harassment-allegations-from-college-classmate

Avenatti: New client will go public with Kavanaugh accusations by Wednesday By Emily Birnbaum – 09/24/18
Michael Avenatti, the lawyer who says he has “credible information” about more sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, said Monday that he expects his new client will appear for an on-camera interview within the next 48 hours.
Avenatti told The Hill that he anticipates his client will go public with her accusation against Kavanaugh in a television interview within the next two days.

“We anticipate that that is what is going to occur,” Avenatti said, confirming an earlier report from Politico. He said he does not know which media outlet she will appear on, adding, “We have not finalized the details.”….
Avenatti on Sunday tweeted a screenshot of an email he sent to Mike Davis, the chief counsel for nominations for the Senate Judiciary Committee. In the email, Avenatti said he is “aware of significant evidence of multiple house parties in the Washington, D.C. area during the early 1980s, during which Brett Kavanaugh, Mark Judge and others would participate in the targeting of women with alcohol/drugs to allow a ‘train’ of men to subsequently gang rape them.” “There are multiple witnesses that will corroborate these facts and each of them must be called to testify publicly,” Avenatti wrote. Avenatti has declined to disclose most of the details about his client, though he told Politico that “she’s had multiple security clearances over the years, including public trust and secret security clearance.”
Avenatti’s client would be the third woman to publicly accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct….
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/408151-avenatti-new-client-will-go-public-with-kavanaugh-accusations-in-next-48

Avenatti promises new Kavanaugh accuser to come forward in next 48 hours
Sophie Tatum By Sophie Tatum, CNN Mon September 24, 2018 Washington (CNN)
Michael Avenatti said Monday night that he has new information regarding allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Avenatti, the lawyer also representing adult film star Stormy Daniels who is suing President Donald Trump, said on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time” that he has multiple clients and “at least one” is prepared to come forward publicly within the next 48 hours.

“At this point, Chris, it’s clients. We’re going to make a public disclosure within the next 48 hours of detailed allegations, as well as the identity of at least one of my clients relating to what she witnessed and experienced concerning Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge, and ultimately we’re going to let the American public decide who’s telling the truth,” Avenatti told CNN’s Chris Cuomo.

Avenatti had previously alluded to representing an additional accuser who would be coming forward soon. In an interview with Fox News earlier Monday, Kavanaugh vehemently denied allegations Avenatti alluded to on Twitter.

….Despite Republican efforts to keep Kavanaugh’s confirmation on track, the process continues to be a slog following accusations of sexual assault and inappropriate sexual behavior from two women who have come forward on the record.
In the first alleged instance, the accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, said Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her while the two were at a party during their high school years. She said Judge was in the room when the alleged assault happened. Judge has denied the allegation.

The second alleged incident took place while Kavanaugh and that accuser, Deborah Ramirez, were attending Yale. Ramirez claimed Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a college party.
Kavanaugh has repeatedly denied the allegations.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/24/politics/michael-avenatti-brett-kavanaugh-cnntv/index.html

In a Culture of Privilege and Alcohol at Yale, Her World Converged With Kavanaugh’s
Deborah Ramirez has accused Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her during a drinking game at a dorm party when they were freshmen at Yale. By Stephanie Saul, Robin Pogrebin, Mike McIntire and Ben Protess Sept. 25, 2018

Last week, more than 30 years after they graduated from Yale, Deborah Ramirez contacted her old friend James Roche. Something bad had happened to her during a night of drinking in the residence hall their freshmen year, she said, and she wondered if he recalled her mentioning it at the time.

Mr. Roche, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, said he had no knowledge of the episode that Ms. Ramirez was trying to piece together, with her memory faded by the years and clouded by that night’s alcohol use. Days later, in a New Yorker story, Ms. Ramirez alleged that Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, exposed himself to her at a dorm party. Mr. Roche, a former roommate of the judge, believes her account, he said, and supports her decision to speak out.

“I think she feels a duty to come forward,” Mr. Roche said. “And I think she’s scared to death of it.” Ms. Ramirez’s allegation — she is the second woman to level claims of sexual misconduct against Judge Kavanaugh — has roiled an already tumultuous confirmation process and riven the Yale community….

Judge Kavanaugh hung out with rowdy jocks, many of them members of his fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon. On a liberal campus known for its scholarship, the DKEs stood out for their hard partying and, some women students claimed, misogyny. During Judge Kavanaugh’s time there — 15 or so years after women arrived — some fraternity brothers paraded around campus displaying women’s underwear they had filched, drawing criticism….

DKE was a “huge party fraternity,” said a former classmate, Sarah Dry. “Lots of drunken parties.” The DKE pledge process was widely seen on campus as degrading. An opinion piece in The Yale Daily News in 1986 said that pledges were forced to walk around campus reading Penthouse magazine aloud and yelling lines like “I’m a butt-hole, sir.”

One woman remembers Judge Kavanaugh’s wearing a leather football helmet while drinking and approaching her on campus the night he was tapped for DKE. She described his grabbing his crotch, hopping on one leg and chanting: “I’m a geek, I’m a geek, I’m a power tool. When I sing this song, I look like a fool.”
Nearly a dozen people who knew him well or socialized with him said Judge Kavanaugh was a heavy drinker in college. Dr. Swisher said she saw him “very drunk” a number of times. Mr. Roche, his former freshmen year roommate, described his stumbling in at all hours of the night….
One night, Ms. Ramirez told The New Yorker, Judge Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a drinking game in a dorm suite.

Sitting in a circle with a small group of students, she recalled, people selected who had to take a drink, and Ms. Ramirez said she was chosen frequently. She became drunk, her head “foggy,” she recalled. As the game continued, a male student began playing with a plastic dildo, pointing it around the room.
Suddenly, Ms. Ramirez claimed, she saw a penis in front of her face.

When she remarked that it wasn’t real, the others students began laughing, with one man telling her to “kiss it,” she told The New Yorker in an interview. Then, as she moved to push it away, she alleged, she saw Judge Kavanaugh standing, laughing and pulling up his pants.

Neither The New Yorker nor The New York Times, which attempted to verify Ms. Ramirez’s story last week, were able to find witnesses acknowledging the episode. (The Times did not obtain an interview with Ms. Ramirez.) The New Yorker, however, reported that a fellow student, whom the publication did not identify, confirmed having learned of the incident — and Judge Kavanaugh’s alleged role in it — within a day or two after it happened….

Ms. Ramirez initially told friends she had memory gaps and was not certain that Judge Kavanaugh was the person who exposed himself, as she related to Mr. Roche and some other old classmates last week. But, after six days of assessing her memories, The New Yorker reported, she said she was confident that Judge Kavanaugh was the man who had humiliated her….

Ms. Ramirez told few people about the incident at the time, she has said to former classmates, because she felt embarrassed and wanted to forget about it….
Several former students who worked in the dining hall along with Ms. Ramirez and her younger sister, Denise, who is also a Yale graduate, did not know of the incident Ms. Ramirez described and have not seen her in years, they said in interviews. But they said they knew her to be an honest person in college.

“She wasn’t manipulative,” said Lisanne Sartor, a former Yale student who is now a writer and director. “What you saw was what you got. This was not someone seeking the spotlight.”
Mr. Roche, the friend she called last week, described her similarly.
“She was bright eyed and guileless, compared to the sophisticated and often aggressive population you find at Yale,” he said in an interview. “The idea that she would make something like this up is inconceivable,” he added. “It’s not consistent with who I know her to be.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/25/us/politics/deborah-ramirez-brett-kavanaugh-allegations.html

Senate probed new allegation of misconduct against Kavanaugh
Supreme Court Nominee was asked about an anonymous accusation of physical assault.
by Kasie Hunt, Leigh Ann Caldwell, Heidi Przybyla and Frank Thorp V Sep.26.2018

….To make sure no stone was left unturned, the committee asked Judge Kavanaugh yesterday about this anonymous letter. Judge Kavanaugh flatly denied any such event ever happened.”
The anonymous complaint that was sent to Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, claimed that Kavanaugh physically assaulted a woman he socialized with in the Washington, D.C., area in 1998 while he was inebriated.
The sender of the complaint described an evening involving her own daughter, Kavanaugh and several friends in 1998.

“When they left the bar (under the influence of alcohol) they were all shocked when Brett Kavanaugh, shoved her friend up against the wall very aggressively and sexually.”
“There were at least four witnesses including my daughter.” The writer of the letter provided no names but said the alleged victim was still traumatized and had decided to remain anonymous herself.

A Democratic source said the minority wasn’t satisfied by the Republicans’ questions about the incident during the call, calling them cursory, and believed it should be investigated more deeply. But other Democrats downplayed its importance.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/senate-probing-new-allegation-misconduct-against-kavanaugh-n913581

New allegations against Kavanaugh submitted to Senate committee
By Maeve Reston and Sara Sidner, CNN Wed September 26, 2018

(CNN) A third woman has presented the Senate Judiciary Committee with allegations of inappropriate behavior by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, accusing him of sexually aggressive behavior at alcohol-fueled parties when he was in high school.
The new accuser, Julie Swetnick, was identified by her lawyer Michael Avenatti on Twitter Wednesday morning. In a sworn statement prepared by Avenatti and submitted to committee, Swetnick said that Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were present at a party where she was drugged and “gang raped.”

Swetnick did not identify Kavanaugh or Judge as her attacker in that incident. She said in her statement that there are two witnesses who can attest to her account, but she has not identified them publicly….

Judge’s lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder, said in a statement, “Mr. Judge vehemently denies the allegations contained in the Swetnick affidavit.”
In an interview with Fox News on Monday, the Supreme Court nominee said that he never sexually assaulted anyone and was a virgin through high school and for “many years after.”
Swetnick, who attended Gaithersburg High School in Maryland, says she attended “well over ten” parties where Kavanaugh was present.
She says she witnessed Kavanaugh “drink excessively and engage in highly inappropriate conduct, including being overly aggressive with girls and not taking “No” for an answer. “This conduct included the fondling and grabbing girls without their consent,” the sworn statement says.
In the sworn statement, she also alleges that Kavanaugh engaged “in abusive and physically aggressive behavior towards girls, including pressing girls against him without their consent, ‘grinding’ against girls and attempting to remove or shift girls’ clothing to expose private body parts.”

Swetnick says that in 1981 and 1982, she became aware of efforts by Judge, Kavanaugh and others to “spike the punch at house parties” so as to “cause girls to lose their inhibitions and their ability to say ‘No.'”

She said at some parties boys lined up by a bedroom to assault incapacitated girls. Swetnick claims that the boys in the lineup included Kavanaugh and Judge, but does not say that they assaulted the girls, or the names of other witnesses who could corroborate it.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/26/politics/julie-swetnick-allegation-kavanaugh/index.html

Kavanaugh accuser Julie Swetnick speaks out on sexual abuse allegations
“I felt like somebody took me and basically said, ‘You’re worthless. You are nothing to us. You are disposable.'” by Kate Snow Oct.01.2018

….In an exclusive broadcast interview with NBC News, Swetnick claims she saw Kavanaugh behave inappropriately at parties in the early 1980s.
“He was very aggressive — very sloppy drunk, very mean drunk. I saw him — go up to girls and paw on them, try to, you know, get a little too handsy, touching them in private parts. I saw him try to shift clothing,” she told Snow.

Swetnick said that it was only after Christine Blasey Ford came forward in a Washington Post article from September 16 to allege in Kavanaugh had attacked her during at a party that she realized she had a similar story to tell.

NBC News was unable to independently corroborate Swetnick’s claims and has not spoken with anyone who says they saw Swetnick at parties with Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh has said he does not know Swetnick and has called her claims a farce.

Swetnick provided NBC News with the names of four friends who she said went to the parties with her. One is deceased, while two others did not respond to requests for comment. A fourth told NBC News he didn’t remember Swetnick and didn’t think he’d socialized with her.

Swetnick says she saw boys gathered outside closed rooms at parties but did not know what was happening behind those closed doors until she says she herself was attacked around 1982.
“My body was violated,” she said, sighing. “My soul was broken … I felt like somebody took me and basically said, ‘You’re worthless. You are nothing to us. You are disposable.'”

She described feeling unwell, being “shoved into a room” and then being raped by more than one man. She says Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were in the same part of the house earlier that evening but she cannot be sure if they were involved….

Swetnick said she told her mother and a police officer about the attack shortly afterward. Both her mother and the officer are now deceased. NBC News filed a public records request for related documents, but local officials said a response could take up to 30 days….
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/kavanaugh-accuser-julie-swetnick-speaks-out-sexual-abuse-allegations-n915641

Text messages suggest Kavanaugh wanted to refute accuser’s claim before it became public
A former classmate of the Supreme Court nominee has reached out to the FBI but hasn’t received a response. by Heidi Przybyla and Leigh Ann Caldwell Oct.01.2018

WASHINGTON — In the days leading up to a public allegation that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh exposed himself to a college classmate, the judge and his team were communicating behind the scenes with friends to refute the claim, according to text messages obtained by NBC News.

Kerry Berchem, who was at Yale with both Kavanaugh and his accuser, Deborah Ramirez, has tried to get those messages to the FBI for its newly reopened investigation into the matter but says she has yet to be contacted by the bureau.
The texts between Berchem and Karen Yarasavage, both friends of Kavanaugh, suggest that the nominee was personally talking with former classmates about Ramirez’s story in advance of the New Yorker article that made her allegation public. In one message, Yarasavage said Kavanaugh asked her to go on the record in his defense. Two other messages show communication between Kavanaugh’s team and former classmates in advance of the story.

In now-public transcripts from an interview with Republican Judiciary Committee staff on September 25, two days after the Ramirez allegations were reported in the New Yorker, Kavanaugh claimed that it was Ramirez who was “calling around to classmates trying to see if they remembered it,” adding that it “strikes me as, you know, what is going on here? When someone is calling around to try to refresh other people? Is that what’s going on? What’s going on with that? That doesn’t sound — that doesn’t sound — good to me. It doesn’t sound fair. It doesn’t sound proper. It sounds like an orchestrated hit to take me out.”

The texts also demonstrate that Kavanaugh and Ramirez were more socially connected than previously understood and that Ramirez was uncomfortable around Kavanaugh when they saw each other at a wedding 10 years after they graduated. Berchem’s efforts also show that some potential witnesses have been unable to get important information to the FBI….
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/mutual-friend-ramirez-kavanaugh-anxious-come-forward-evidence-n915566

Text messages between Brett Kavanaugh and his classmates seem to contradict his Senate testimony David Choi Judge Brett Kavanaugh and his staff were reportedly sending text messages to former classmates to underplay allegations that he exposed himself during a party at Yale University.

One of Kavanaugh’s friends said in a message that she corresponded with “Brett” and “Brett’s guy.” A recipient of the text messages said she forwarded them to the FBI because “they merit investigation by the FBI and the Senate.” She said she conveyed the contents of the messages to the FBI twice, but has not heard back as of Monday morning. The timing of the text messages sent from Kavanaugh and members of his team may renew the inquiry surrounding testimony he gave to the Judiciary Committee last week. Kavanaugh previously testified that he had not discussed or heard of Ramirez’s allegations from The New Yorker. But Kavanaugh later appeared to contradict himself by saying he had heard that one of his accusers was “calling around to classmates trying to see if they remembered it.”
Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, and his staff were reportedly sending text messages to former classmates to underplay allegations that he exposed himself during a party at Yale University.

The text messages, which were obtained by NBC News, were reportedly between Kavanaugh’s friends, Kerry Berchem and Karen Yarasavage. Based on the contents of the messages, Kavanaugh himself may reached out to his classmates to undercut the claims made by former classmate Deborah Ramirez, who told The New Yorker that Kavanaugh had exposed himself in front of others at a dorm-room party during the 1983-84 school year.

According to one message, Yarasavage said that Kavanaugh had asked her to defend him on the record, NBC News reported. Other messages indicate that Kavanaugh’s surrogates had communicated with his former classmates before the story’s publication….
https://www.businessinsider.com/did-brett-kavanaugh-commit-perjury-testimony-new-yorker-article-deborah-ramirez-2018-10

Police questioned Kavanaugh after bar fight in 1985 Anchor Muted Background By Kate Sullivan, CNN Mon October 1, 2018 Washington

(CNN)Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was accused of starting an altercation while he was a student at Yale, according to a 1985 police report obtained by CNN, after police responded “in regards to an assault.”

In the New Haven, Connecticut, police department report, a man named Dom Cozzolino said Kavanaugh had thrown ice on him and Kavanaugh’s friend Chris Dudley had thrown a glass that hit him in the ear.
“The argument between the two started when Mr. Cozzolino stated that Brett Kavanaugh threw ice at him for some unknown reason and he then got hit in the ear with a glass,” the report says.
Dudley denied the allegations, according to the report, “and Mr. Kavanaugh didn’t (want) to say if he threw the ice or not. “

The police report does not indicate whether anyone was arrested, and New Haven’s police chief, Anthony Campbell, told CNN there are no other records he is aware of involving Kavanaugh….

Chad Ludington, a former classmate of Kavanaugh’s, has said Kavanaugh did not tell the truth about his drinking in his testimony Thursday to the Senate Judiciary Committee. In Ludington’s statement released Sunday he also mentions an altercation involving Kavanaugh: “On one of the last occasions I purposely socialized with Brett, I witnessed him respond to a semi-hostile remark, not by defusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in the man’s face.”

Ludington told CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time” anchor Chris Cuomo that the altercation happened after a UB40 concert, when he and a group of friends were drinking at Demery’s.
They were sitting near a man who they thought looked like the lead singer of UB40, Ali Campbell, and were trying to figure out whether it was him, Ludington told Cuomo.

The man noticed Ludington, Kavanaugh and the others looking at him and — according to Ludington — aggressively asked them to stop.
Ludington told Cuomo he initially remembered Kavanaugh then threw his beer at the man, but recently found out from the report that there were ice cubes in the thrown drink.

“We weren’t drinking water, so it must’ve been some sort of mixed drink,” Ludington told Cuomo.

The man next then “took a swing at Brett,” Ludington continued, and then they were “two guys fighting — that was all very quick.”
Dudley then took his drink and “proceeded to smash it up against the guy’s head,” Ludington recalled.
There was some shouting, and then the police showed up, Ludington said. They looked around and asked questions, he said, and then Dudley was put in a squad car and taken to jail….
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/01/politics/nyt-police-kavanaugh-bar-fight/index.html

Brett Kavanaugh was ‘belligerent and aggressive’ drinker, Yale classmate says John Bacon, USA TODAY Oct. 1, 2018 Another Yale classmate of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh challenged the truthfulness of the Supreme Court nominee’s Senate testimony, saying Kavanaugh was often “belligerent and aggressive” when he drank.

Charles “Chad” Ludington, an associate professor of history at North Carolina State University, released a statement saying Kavanaugh “has not told the truth” when denying he never blacked out and downplaying his drinking as a young man.
“On many occasions, I heard Brett slur his words and saw him staggering from alcohol consumption,” Ludington wrote. “When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive.”
Ludington said he would not discuss Kavanaugh with the media but would tell his story to the FBI. The agency is conducting a one-week investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against the federal judge that date back to high school.

Last week, Seattle physician and Yale classmate Liz Swisher said Kavanaugh was a “sloppy drunk” in college. Freshman-year roommate James Roche said Kavanaugh was a “notably heavy drinker, even by the standards of the time, and … became aggressive and belligerent when he was very drunk.”
Roche said he believed Deborah Ramirez, another Yale classmate, who accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. Kavanaugh denied the allegations.
The New York Times reported Monday that in September 1985, Kavanaugh was involved in an altercation at a bar in which he was accused of throwing ice at another patron. The Times report cited a police report of the New Haven incident and said Kavanaugh was not arrested.

According to the police report, the victim in the case said that after Kavanaugh hurled the ice, a friend of Kavanaugh’s threw a glass and hit the victim in the ear, causing him to bleed. The man was treated at a hospital and Kavanaugh, speaking to officers, did not want “to say if he threw the ice or not,” the Times quoted the police report as saying.

Ludington said he was a varsity basketball player and Kavanaugh enjoyed socializing with athletes. Ludington said he “cringed” when he watched Kavanaugh describe his drinking on a Fox News TV interview and in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“In recent days, I have become deeply troubled by what has been a blatant mischaracterization by Brett himself of his drinking at Yale,” Ludington wrote. “Brett was a frequent drinker, and a heavy drinker.”…
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/10/01/brett-kavanaugh-yale-classmate-drinking-statement/1484822002/

Chief Justice John Roberts Accused of ‘Cover Up’ for Sitting on Kavanaugh Misconduct Complaints
by Colin Kalmbacher October 6th, 2018

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has received over a dozen official judicial misconduct complaints leveled against U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Court Judge and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. So far he has not forwarded the complaints to a proper judicial panel. Now, some critics are calling foul and accusing Roberts of mounting a cover-up in favor of the controversial Supreme Court nominee.

Those official misconduct complaints were forwarded to Roberts by a fellow member of Kavanaugh’s court. While U.S. Circuit Judge Merrick Garland would traditionally have overseen those complaints, Garland chose to recuse himself on the matter, according to Buzzfeed News.
In his stead, U.S. Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson fielded the multiple complaints against Kavanaugh. Judge Henderson dismissed many complaints filed against the Supreme Court nominee as “frivolous,” but found substantial merit in over a dozen of the complaints she reviewed.

According to the Washington Post, Henderson began forwarding the complaints she deemed valid onto Roberts. Henderson sent them to Roberts so that Kavanaugh’s fellow judges on the D.C. Circuit would not have to assess the serious and substantive issues raised against a colleague.
In a statement released early on Saturday afternoon, Judge Henderson noted, “Under the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act (28 U.S.C. §§351-364) any person may file a misconduct complaint against a federal judge in the circuit in which the federal judge sits. After the start of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, members of the general public began filing complaints in the D.C. Circuit about statements made during those hearings.”

Henderson’s statement continued, clarifying the conduct at issue. She wrote, “The complaints do not pertain to any conduct in which Judge Kavanaugh engaged as a judge. The complaints seek investigations only of the public statements he has made as a nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States.”….
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/chief-justice-john-roberts-accused-of-cover-up-for-sitting-on-kavanaugh-misconduct-complaints/

FBI’s Kavanaugh review was limited from the start, The New York Times reports
The FBI’s review of Brett Kavanaugh’s background check was limited from the start, The New York Times reports. Joy Reid and her panel discuss the impact reportedly restricting the investigation’s scope may have had on its findings.
https://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/fbi-s-kavanaugh-review-was-limited-from-the-start-the-new-york-times-reports-1338382915520

D.C. Circuit sent complaints about Kavanaugh’s testimony to Chief Justice Roberts
By Carol D. Leonnig , Ann E. Marimow and Tom Hamburger October 6
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has received more than a dozen judicial misconduct complaints in recent weeks against Brett M. Kavanaugh, who was confirmed as a Supreme Court justice Saturday, but has chosen for the time being not to refer them to a judicial panel for investigation.

A judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit — the court on which Kavanaugh serves — passed on to Roberts a string of complaints the court received starting three weeks ago, said four people familiar with the matter.
That judge, Karen LeCraft Henderson, had dismissed other complaints against Kavanaugh as frivolous, but she concluded that some were substantive enough that they should not be handled by Kavanaugh’s fellow judges in the D.C. Circuit.

In a statement Saturday, Henderson said the complaints centered on statements Kavanaugh made during his Senate confirmation hearings.
Under the law, “any person may file a misconduct complaint in the circuit in which the federal judge sits,” she said in the statement. “The complaints do not pertain to any conduct in which Judge Kavanaugh engaged as a judge. The complaints seek investigations only of the public statements he has made as a nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States.”….

People familiar with the matter say the allegations made in the complaints — that Kavanaugh was dishonest and lacked judicial temperament during his Senate testimony — had already been widely discussed in the Senate and in the public realm. Roberts did not see an urgent need for them to be resolved by the judicial branch while he continued to review the incoming complaints, they said.

The situation is highly unusual, said legal experts and several people familiar with the matter. Never before has a Supreme Court nominee been poised to join the court while a fellow judge recommends that misconduct claims against that nominee warrant review.

Roberts’s decision not to immediately refer the cases to another appeals court has caused some concern in the legal community. Now that he has been confirmed, the details of the complaints may not become public and instead may be dismissed, legal experts say. Supreme Court justices are not subject to the misconduct rules governing these claims.
“If Justice Roberts sits on the complaints, then they will reside in a kind of purgatory and will never be adjudicated,” said Stephen Gillers, a professor at New York University Law School and an expert on Supreme Court ethics. “This is not how the rules anticipated the process would work.”….

Roberts, an appointee of President George W. Bush, has for many years hired Kavanaugh clerks to work for him at the Supreme Court. Bush credits Kavanaugh in his book with helping him choose Roberts for the high court when Kavanaugh was a White House lawyer.
Normally, misconduct complaints are confidential and do not become public until they are fully investigated and concluded.
Most of these complaints center on Kavanaugh’s answers about his work in the Bush

administration, according to people familiar with them. They also accuse Kavanaugh of lacking judicial temperament in his partisan comments about Democrats, the people said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dc-circuit-sent-complaints-about-kavanaughs-testimony-to-chief-justice-roberts/2018/10/06/c7e7b526-c8d0-11e8-b1ed-1d2d65b86d0c_story.html

Anti-Kavanaugh protesters keep up the fight, even after he’s confirmed
By Ralph Ellis, CNN Sat October 6, 2018
CNN)Protesters opposed to Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the US Supreme Court swarmed over Washington on Saturday — massing at the Capitol, disrupting the confirmation vote in the Senate and banging on the Supreme Court building doors when Kavanaugh arrived to be sworn in.

About 5:45 p.m. ET Saturday, a large crowd of protesters surged onto the front steps of the Supreme Court, chanting, “Hey hey, ho ho, Kavanaugh has got to go.”

After police pushed them back from the doors, the demonstrators held signs and chanted, “No justice, no peace,” and “We believe Anita Hill,” a reference to the woman who accused Justice Clarence Thomas of misconduct.

It’s not known if Kavanaugh heard the protesters. Police cleared the steps of the court about 6:15 p.m. and set up barriers. Protesters stood one by one in different sections of the gallery, most with their fists raised, and yelled “I will not consent.” “The sergeant-at-arms will restore order in the gallery,” the presiding officer, Vice President Mike Pence, said several times. Police forcibly removed the protesters, with one person dragged out by their arms and legs. They kept screaming as they were pulled into the hallway. Crowds started forming around 9 a.m. ET outside the Capitol building and the Supreme Court building and grew through the morning. Protesters occupied the Rotunda Steps on the East Front of the US Capitol early Saturday afternoon, with about 150 of them being arrested, Capitol Police said in a news release. Video showed them lined up, with wrists cuffed behind their backs on the Capitol lawn. Police cleared the steps and the Capitol Plaza, and the protesters headed back to the Supreme Court….

A demonstration scheduled for Saturday outside Collins’ office in Portland, Maine, was canceled.
A group gathered there Friday and fell silent when she announced her decision, CNN affiliate WGME reported. “It’s just this feeling of being utterly ignored,” Jenny O’Connell of Portland told WGME on Friday. “Susan Collins just made a huge choice to ignore her constituents and survivors (of sexual assault).” https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/06/politics/kavanaugh-protests/index.html

Roberts asks federal judges to handle Kavanaugh complaints
The Associated Press MARK SHERMAN Oct 10th 2018

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chief Justice John Roberts is referring ethics complaints against new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to federal judges in Colorado and neighboring states.
The complaints deal with statements Kavanaugh made during his confirmation hearings. They were filed originally with Kavanaugh’s old court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Roberts took no action on them while Kavanaugh’s nomination was pending. He received the first three of 15 eventual complaints on Sept. 20, a week before Kavanaugh’s angry denial of a sexual assault allegation by Christine Blasey Ford.

It’s possible the complaints will never be investigated if the lower-court judges determine they have no jurisdiction over a Supreme Court justice under the judiciary’s ethics rules. The judges may be forced to conclude “that intervening events have rendered the allegations moot or make remedial action impossible,” said Arthur Hellman, an ethics professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

Another ethicist, Stephen Gillers of New York University, disagreed that the complaints are moot. Kavanaugh remains a federal judge and the complaints “allege misconduct that occurred while Kavanaugh was on the D.C. Circuit and subject to the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges. Any violation of the Code does not disappear because he is now on another federal court,” Gillers said in an email.
But Gillers said the complaints “may be found not to be meritorious in the end.”….
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/10/10/roberts-asks-federal-judges-to-handle-kavanaugh-complaints/23557425/

Statement on BrettKavanaugh.com October 9, 2018 Three years ago, I bought a handful of URLs that I thought might be useful in any forthcoming Supreme Court confirmation battles. Included were BrettKavanaugh.com, .org and .net. Today I am redirecting those three to a landing page with resources for victims of sexual assault. I believe Dr. Ford. I believe Prof. Hill. I also believe that asking for forgiveness is a sign of maturity and strength, not weakness.

Watching the White House ceremony last night and listening to the President again cast doubt on the veracity of Dr. Ford’s claims, while not hearing a word of contrition from the newest justice, was difficult for many Americans who have experienced sexual misconduct firsthand.
Fix the Court stands with you. We believe you, and we support you. And if you seek additional resources, you can go to BrettKavanaugh.com.
https://fixthecourt.com/2018/10/kavanaughurl/

Christine Blasey Ford Still Can’t Return Home Due to Threats By Natasha Bach October 8, 2018

The book is closed on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. But while he has been confirmed to the highest court, the story isn’t over for his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.
Ford’s lawyers told NBC News on Sunday that Ford and her family have still been unable to return to their home due to the death threats she continues to face after testifying against Kavanaugh on Sep. 27.

“Her family has been through a lot,” Debra Katz said. “They are not living at home. It’s going to be quite some time before they’re able to live at home.” “The threats have been unending,” she added, “It’s deplorable. It’s been very frightening.”

Ford had already alluded to these threats in her testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, telling the committee that she and her family had been living in “various secure locales” with security guards since Sept. 16. She said that she and her family had been subject to harassment and death threats, and that she had been “called the most vile and hateful names imaginable.”
“My greatest fears have been realized—and the reality has been far worse than what I expected,” she said.

Ford’s other attorney, Lisa Banks, told NBC that the government’s handling of Ford’s case was “far worse” than that of Anita Hill. With Hill, she said, “there was a full FBI investigation before there was ever a hearing.”
She added that Ford was “horrified” by Trump’s comments that sought to undermine her credibility. “She was upset by it, yes, as any woman would be who’s the victim of sexual assault and was mocked and belittled by anyone, never mind the president of the United States,” Banks said. http://fortune.com/2018/10/08/christine-blasey-ford-still-facing-threats/

Democrats not giving up Kavanaugh battle The conservative jurist is settling into a lifetime appointment, but Democratic leaders think they can still discredit him and GOP leaders By JOSH GERSTEIN 10/10/2018

Democrats are showing no signs of backing off their battle against newly minted Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, pressing forward with legal fights to unearth potentially damaging records that didn’t go public during the white-hot nomination contest.

Democratic leaders are taking steps to obtain and release detailed documents and emails about the sexual assault allegations against him and disputed aspects of his service during the Bush administration.
While Democrats are strategizing to get what they consider the most potentially impactful records out soon, it’s all but certain that the process will drag on for years and perhaps even decades.
Many Democrats are skittish about talk of impeaching Kavanaugh, an effort that seems doomed in the Senate even if Democrats win control of the House in midterm elections next month. But there seems to be a broad consensus on the left to keep up the fight for documents lawmakers believe should have been made public before the vote on Trump’s second high court nominee.

Democratic lawmakers say it’s worth serving up a reminder of how Republicans tried to short-circuit the process and gave short shrift to Ford’s allegations.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi followed through Wednesday on a promised Freedom of Information Act request demanding records related to the background investigation the FBI reopened into Kavanaugh after Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he sexually assaulted her during high school, a claim Kavanaugh categorically denied.

“The FBI’s supplemental background investigation appears to have been significantly limited in scope to ensure that a thorough investigation would not take place, numerous witnesses would not be questioned, and numerous questions would not be asked — including whether Justice Kavanaugh deliberately misled Congress on multiple subjects,” Pelosi wrote in her letter seeking documents about the FBI’s interviews and the ground rules for the inquiry. “The public must know what limitations were imposed on the FBI and who imposed them, so this never happens again.”….
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/10/kavanaugh-faces-drip-drip-drip-on-records-892054

Arizona Shelter Shut in Latest Case of Migrant Child Abuse By Associated Press (PHOENIX) — Staff members at a Phoenix-area shelter for unaccompanied migrant children physically abused three children, leading to the closure of the shelter, federal officials said. It was the latest in a series of incidents of alleged abuse involving staff members at shelters and children.
Southwest Key’s Hacienda del Sol shelter was shut down last Friday, but federal officials did not reveal the reason behind the closure until Tuesday.

The Texas-based federal contractor has fired the staffers involved in the Sept. 18 incident, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement….
Arizona has seen numerous allegations of sexual abuse at its many shelters for immigrant children, including one made by the government of El Salvador, which said it received reports of three children, 12 to 17, who were sexually abused at unnamed shelters in Arizona.

Last month, a former youth care worker was convicted of sexually abusing seven teenage boys at a Phoenix-area shelter for immigrant children.
In August, authorities arrested a 32-year-old man on allegations that he had molested a 14-year-old girl at a Southwest Key facility the previous month…. http://time.com/5421462/arizona-migrant-children-shelter-abuse/

More possible victims come forward in case of doctor accused of drugging, raping women
Dr. Grant William Robicheaux and Cerissa Laura Riley are accused of accused of drugging and sexually assaulting at least two women. by Phil Helsel and Katie Wall Sep.19.2018
LOS ANGELES — Around a half-dozen women have come forward as possible victims since charges were announced against an Orange County surgeon who is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting at least two women, officials said Wednesday. Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said more women have come forward a day after investigators released information about the case of against Dr. Grant William Robicheaux, 38, and his girlfriend, Cerissa Laura Riley, 31, who are charged with allegedly sexually assaulting two extremely intoxicated women in 2016. Rackauckas said Wednesday that he believes there could be many more victims, based on videos and images seized by authorities in the case. “It’s hundreds, probably over a thousand” he said of the videos and images. Many show sexual conduct, he said, “and some of those … are situations where the lady in the video other than the couple appears to be intoxicated to the point of, past the point of being able to consent.”

Robicheaux and Riley were charged on Sept. 11 with rape by use of drugs, oral copulation by anesthesia or controlled substance, assault with intent to commit sexual offense and possession of a controlled substance for sale. Attorneys for the pair say both deny any allegations of non-consensual sex…. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/more-possible-victims-come-forward-case-doctor-accused-drugging-raping-n911261

‘I lost my entire family to a cult’: How one woman escaped Grace Road
A South Korean church which believes global famine is imminent has set up base in Fiji, where it’s gained considerable influence but faced growing allegations of abuse. One woman who fled what she believes is a cult told the BBC’s Yvette Tan she lost her family in the process – but has no regrets.
Seoyeon Lee had one chance to escape and she took it, running down the road in Fiji in her pyjamas and flip-flops.
“I was crying and I looked hysterical,” she told the BBC.

The then 21-year-old was being pursued by members of Grace Road – including her own mother – who she says had tricked her into going to the Pacific island nation.
“I would have killed myself if they’d made me stay,” she says.
‘I think it’s a cult’
A year earlier, in 2013, Seoyeon had come home to South Korea from the US, where she was studying, for the summer. Her mum was suffering from uterine cancer but had refused treatment.
She told Seoyeon she would only seek treatment if she went with her to Grace Road Church.

“It was very bizarre,” said Seoyeon. “There were people screaming, crying, speaking in tongues and the sermon was about how the end times were coming.
“I told my mum, I think it’s a cult but she didn’t believe me.”….
South Korea has a significant Christian population, and in recent decades many small, fringe churches have sprung up, some of them developing cult-like characteristics.
Grace Road, which insists it is not a cult, started out small in 2002, but now numbers about 1,000 followers, according to Prof Tark Ji-il of Busan Presbyterian University, who has closely studied Korean cults….

“When my dad died, we were left a certain sum of money. I’m pretty sure my mum took all that and gave it to the church,” she said. “They make you sell your property, quit your job, cut off your friends.”
The group has built up a sizeable business empire, from construction to restaurants to agriculture.
“Farming is our original mission because we need to prepare for the famine, we need to be self-sufficient,” Daniel Kim, president of GR Group and Ms Shin’s son told the BBC….

‘No choice but to stay’
But over the past year, a bleak picture has emerged of life inside Grace Road.
Five church members who had returned to South Korea accused Ms Shin of confiscating their passports and holding them against their will. They alleged the church used forced labour and issued ritual beatings so harsh that they led to the death of one follower….
In July, Ms Shin was arrested while back in South Korea on charges of assault and confinement. She was alleged to have abandoned the church members, confiscated their passports, and overseen a brutal regime.

Then in August, Fijian and South Korean authorities conducted a joint raid on the church in Fiji, arresting Mr Kim and several other senior members as part of a slavery investigation.
They were released without charge, but according to Fiji’s police commissioner, investigations are “ongoing”.
A documentary by South Korean broadcaster SBS last month included footage of Ms Shin beating her followers.
Chief Chun Jae-hong of the Korean National Police Agency told SBS that many had “donated their entire fortune to the church, so even if they go back they are penniless… so they have no choice [but to stay]”….
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45492913

Video Appears to Show a South Korean ‘Cult Leader’ Physically Abusing Her Followers By Eli Meixler September 17, 2018 A video clip appears to show a South Korean pastor physically abusing church members and coercing them to beat each other, footage that emerged amid an investigation into claims that the woman was the leader of a religious cult in Fiji, the Guardian reports.
Footage reviewed by the Guardian and South Korean police reportedly shows Shin Ok-ju, pastor of the messianic South Korean Grace Road Church, subjecting her followers to abuse such as hair pulling and cutting during her sermons in South Korea.

The footage was originally aired as part of a documentary program by a South Korean broadcaster, the Guardian reports. Some followers were reportedly forced to endure “ritual beatings” at designated areas called “threshing floors” at the religious group’s compound in Fiji. Approximately 400 members of the church relocated to Fiji in 2014 after Shin predicted a famine on the Korean peninsula. While in Fiji, members of the Grace Road group reportedly suffered regular physical abuse and had their passports confiscated to prevent them from leaving. Witnesses said a man in his 70s was beaten hundreds of times while in Fiji. When he returned to South Korea, he visited a doctor who said he has suffered a severe brain injury that killed him about a year later.
A spokesperson for the Grace Road church defended the beatings in a statement as efforts to “publicly reprove” church members “so that they would turn back and no longer sin.”….
http://time.com/5397789/south-korea-grace-road-church-beating-video/

Defectors say former church pastor is a ‘cult leader,’ but her son fights back
By Joshua Berlinger and Yoonjung Seo, CNN Mon October 29, 2018

Church defectors reveal video of ritualistic violence
Seoul, South Korea (CNN)Standing in front of her parish in a bright yellow jacket, Shin Ok-joo holds back tears. Her voice takes on a tone of both anger and sadness.

“How could you behave like this?” she asks her congregation in a video purportedly filmed in South Korea in April last year at the Grace Road Church, where Shin serves as pastor. Soft weeping from people seated in pews intensifies into a chorus of sobs. “Am I your toy? Did I tell you I was your toy? You crazy one!”
Shin leaves her pulpit but remains on the raised platform above her congregation as she approaches a group of people with their heads bowed. With her left hand, she grabs a worshiper in a brown coat by her hair and, with her free hand, slaps the person across the face. The slaps continue, and the crying from the audience grows louder. Shin’s emotion is apparent on her face.
After four slaps, the congregant falls to the floor. Shin picks up the woman by the hair and shakes her head violently. By this point, the audience’s screams are loud, raw and visceral. Shin yells at her, but what she says is inaudible due to the sobbing.

According to Grace Road, this is an example of what the church calls “threshing,” a ritual involving church members being slapped and hit as a form of repentance in accordance with Shin’s interpretation of the Bible. It symbolizes separating sin from the human body in the same way that grains are removed from crops by threshing.

The woman at the receiving end of Shin’s blows had just returned from Fiji, where about 400 members of the church have moved to set up shop. Shin preaches that Fiji is the land chosen by God to be the center of the world and the ideal place to survive an impending great famine, and the church has made significant investments in the country.
Video of this incident was supplied to CNN by Daniel Kim, Shin’s son, in an attempt to counter allegations from former congregants of violence against its members.

The footage from Kim was sent a day after three former members of the church revealed 20 minutes worth of footage of particularly violent threshing incidents at a news conference in Seoul Wednesday.
“Shin is a cult leader and the Grace Road Church is a cult,” Lee Soon-deok, one of the former members, told the media Wednesday.
“She tells people that she is the only one to rely on, that people can only be saved by her. Shin is an evil woman.”

Former church members contend that the threshing ritual is assault — and South Korean prosecutors have moved to punish Shin for it. She was arrested in July and remains behind bars awaiting trial, charged with forced confinement and physical assault. At the time of Shin’s arrest, South Korean authorities said many of congregants in Fiji appeared to have been stripped of their passports upon arrival by senior members of the church….
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/28/asia/fiji-grace-road-church-intl/index.html

Bill Cosby sentenced to 3 to 10 years in prison for sexual assault
By Eric Levenson and Aaron Cooper, CNN Tue September 25, 2018

(CNN)Bill Cosby, once known as “America’s Dad,” was sentenced Tuesday to three to 10 years in a state prison for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home 14 years ago.
Cosby’s bail was revoked and he was escorted from the courthouse in handcuffs.

“This was a serious crime,” Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Judge Steven O’Neill said. “Mr. Cosby, this has all circled back to you. The day has come, the time has come.”

Cosby, convicted in April of aggravated indecent assault, declined to speak to the court prior to the sentence. His attorneys have filed an appeal…. He also was ordered to pay a fine of $25,000 plus the costs of prosecution as part of the sentence. In addition, O’Neill ruled that Cosby will be classified as a “sexually violent predator,” a determination that requires lifetime registration, lifetime mandatory sex offender counseling with a treatment provider and notification to the community that a “sexually violent predator” lives in the area…. The lengthy path to this moment began in 2004 when Cosby, the groundbreaking actor, gave Constand pills to incapacitate her and then sexually assaulted her. She told police in 2005 about the incident but prosecutors declined to press charges, and they settled the case in civil court a year later.

A decade later, dozens of women came forward to say Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted them over his decades as a powerful media figure. Constand’s was the only one of those cases that occurred within the statute of limitations. A new team of prosecutors took up the case and, relying on Constand’s and Cosby’s statements in a civil deposition, arrested him in December 2015.
A first criminal trial against Cosby ended in a hung jury. But in April, Cosby was convicted of three counts of aggravated indecent assault for drugging and assaulting Constand in the first high-profile celebrity criminal trial of the #MeToo era.

“No one is above the law, and no one should be treated differently or disproportionally,” O’Neill said…. https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/25/us/bill-cosby-sentence-assault/index.html

Child abuse inquiry says orphanages were places of ‘threat and abuse’
11 October 2018 Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry
Children at Smyllum Park orphanage were sexually abused and beaten with leather straps, hairbrushes and crucifixes, the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has found.

Nuns belonging to the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul ran the Catholic Children’s home near Lanark, as well as Bellevue House, Rutherglen.

Lady Smith, who is chairing the inquiry, has published a report on evidence heard during the case study. She said the homes were places of fear, threat, and excessive discipline. The judge said emotional, physical and sexual abuse took place. The children found “no love, no compassion, no dignity and no comfort,” she said. A total of 54 witnesses told of their experiences at Smyllum Park, which closed in 1981, and Bellevue House, which closed in 1961, and 21 written statements were submitted.

What did the inquiry report say?
Lady Smith’s interim report into the Smyllum and BelleVue case studies concluded:
Children were abused while in the care of the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul
They were sexually abused in Smyllum by priests, a trainee priest, nuns, members of staff and a volunteer. The abuse was, in some cases, prolonged.

There was also problematic sexual behaviour by other children.
Children were hit with implements, the punishment being either excessive or for reasons which the child could not fathom.
The implements used included leather straps, the “Lochgelly Tawse,” hairbrushes, sticks, footwear, rosary beads, wooden crucifixes and a dog’s lead.
For some children, being hit was a normal aspect of daily life.

The physical punishments meted out to children went beyond what was acceptable at the time whether as punishment in schools or in the home.
Children who were bed-wetters were abused physically and emotionally.
They were beaten, put in cold baths and humiliated in ways that included “wearing” their wet sheets and being subjected to hurtful name-calling by Sisters and by other children.
Many children were force-fed.

Children were used as unpaid labour.
Many children were forced to queue in a state of undress for a bath and shared bathwater that was too hot or cold and dirty.
There was no system for marking children’s birthdays. Some children didn’t know when their birthday was.
Children were abused for being left-handed and forced to use their right hands instead.
Some were abused for being Protestants and one child was told the Jewishness would be knocked out of him….

121 – Number of complaints of alleged historical abuse at Smyllum made to the Order between 1998 and 2002 That’s 37 complaints against individual sisters, 23 complaints against lay staff, four complaints against priests and two complaints against scout leaders)
26 – Number of complaints of alleged abuse at Bellevue made to the Order between 1998 and 2002 (That includes 18 complaints against individual sisters and five complaints against lay staff)
99 – Number of civil actions raised against the Order in relation to Smyllum
18 – Number of civil actions raised against the Order in relation to Bellevue…. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-45812269

Spiritual Leader Raped 2 Women During Ceremonies, Prosecutors Say
By Michael Gold Oct. 10, 2018 A 42-year-old woman went to a Brooklyn apartment in August 2016 to meet a self-described spiritual leader for what she thought was a “church ceremony.” She had met him at a religious goods store. During the ceremony, the man, Nigel Kennedy, started chanting and poured a drink that tasted like alcohol into the woman’s mouth, prosecutors said. She passed out briefly, then regained consciousness and felt someone on top of her. The next morning she awoke naked on an unfamiliar bed, feeling nauseous and dizzy, and realized she had been raped, prosecutors said.
Mr. Kennedy, 51, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn to charges of rape and sexual abuse. He is accused of drugging and raping two women in Brooklyn during separate religious ceremonies two years apart….
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/nyregion/spiritual-leader-rape-brooklyn.html

Ex-Jehovah’s Witness, abuse survivor launches nonprofit By Shomik Mukherjee October 11, 2018
A woman who said she was repeatedly sexually assaulted throughout her childhood by a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Fortuna, an experience she recounted in a televised documentary in May, has now launched a nonprofit organization to help fellow survivors of sexual abuse.

Romy Maple has registered SAFE 707 — which stands for Sexual Assault Fighters Elite — as an official nonprofit. She hopes to become a certified life coach in order to aid fellow survivors, especially those who have left behind religious organizations and are at risk, she said, of simply joining another one upon leaving.
“Once you leave a cult, you might walk away but you’re still not free,” she said. Leaving everything behind often leaves individuals without spiritual independence, she said, which further leads some to give into the same type of emotional blackmail elsewhere.

In May, Maple appeared prominently in an A&E documentary series, “Cults and Extreme Belief,” hosted by journalist Elizabeth Vargas.
A&E stated it contacted Jehovah’s Witnesses, which declined to comment on the allegations, but provided producers a copy of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ position on child protection.
“Jehovah’s Witnesses abhor child abuse and view it as a crime. We recognize that the authorities are responsible for addressing such crimes,” the policy states. “The elders do not shield any perpetrator of child abuse from the authorities.”….
Shortly after the documentary episode focusing on Jehovah’s Witnesses aired on A&E, Maple shared her story with the Times-Standard.
She said she was drugged and raped for much of her childhood by an individual who, like her, was a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation in Fortuna. At the age of 11, she said, she tried alerting elders in the congregation to the repeated abuse, but all ignored her. For years afterward, she said, she struggled with suicidal thoughts and feelings of loneliness.

The alleged incidents happened far longer ago than the statute of limitations for rape. A few weeks ago, Maple said, she confronted her alleged abuser, offering him forgiveness and asking for an apology. She said she didn’t receive one.
Maple currently lives in Fortuna. The town still carries a culture of silence, she said. She often drives by the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, she said, and wonders if children in there are still being abused….

Maple will soon embark on a days-long retreat, which she hopes will further help in her healing. Her ultimate goal, she said, is to help those who are in danger of “cult-hopping.” “If you don’t have the training or education, you’re going to fall back into the same type of vibration,” she said. “That’s what you’re primed for.”…. https://www.times-standard.com/2018/10/11/ets-l-maple-1011/

The woman who escaped a polygamous cult – and turned its HQ into a refuge
Briell Decker was 18 when she became the 65th wife of US cult leader Warren Jeffs. Can she help heal the town his FLDS sect ruled for generations? Alex Hannaford Sat 13 Oct 2018

Briell Decker carefully removed the screws from the corners of the window and began pounding on the glass until it started to come loose. Hearing the noise, her sister-in-law, who had been in the lounge area of their trailer home, came in and took the screwdriver away. But it was too late: Decker had already unscrewed one side of the pane; as soon as she was alone again, she opened the window, climbed out into the street and ran away. She was escaping her brother, his wife, and the fundamentalist Mormon cult they all belonged to. Decker had been forced to marry its leader, Warren Jeffs, aged 18.

Six years later, Decker sits on the back porch of the $1.2m mansion where she once lived with Jeffs. “I knew I wasn’t going to give up, whether I made it out or not,” she says of her escape. “Nothing was going to stop me.”
Everything has changed since then. Jeffs is seven years into a life sentence for sexual assault. Decker has made a life for herself, and recently remarried. The town in which she lives has started to open itself up to people outside the cult for the first time in 90 years, and to welcome back excommunicated members.

For three generations, the twin cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona – collectively known as Short Creek – have been home to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as FLDS, a religious sect that split from the Mormon church in 1930; its members wanted to continue to practise polygamy. The church teaches that having multiple wives (each of whom is assigned to a man) is ordained by God. Women wear long-sleeved prairie dresses that stretch down to the ankles, and pin their hair in a bun.

Now the walls around Short Creek’s houses, real and figurative, are coming down. Decker has turned the 44-room mansion where Jeffs and his wives lived into a refuge for other women fleeing the same church. “Even though it was his house, it feels good,” she says.

Jeffs, a tall, slim man with dark eyes, has been president and prophet of FLDS since 2002, continuing to run the cult from his prison cell. Soon after he assumed the leadership, he began splitting families apart, taking young girls as his own brides, and excommunicating members, mainly young men, from the church. He banned socialising, as well as contact with the outside world. In 2011, he began a life sentence for sexually assaulting two girls aged 12 and 14, whom he described as his “spiritual wives”. Jeffs, now 62, has wed around 80 women and children over the years, though the state doesn’t recognise these marriages. Decker was wife number 65.

It has taken a long time for change to come to Short Creek, as the community starts to reckon with its leader’s legacy. There are still about 10,000 active members of the church in the region, most of them in Short Creek. But there are signs that others have moved on: last November, Hildale elected its first ever female, non-FLDS, mayor. A few months ago, a new police chief – an outsider with no ties to the community – was sworn in after a jury ruled that the previous force, made up entirely of church members, was guilty of religious discrimination…..
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/13/woman-escaped-cult-hq-flds-refuge

Nevada’s famous pimp expected to win election despite death
The Associated Press MICHELLE L. PRICE Oct 17th 2018
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nevada’s most famous pimp tried to bring the state’s legal brothel industry into the mainstream by mingling with celebrities, showcasing his business on HBO and staging outlandish publicity stunts.

Dennis Hof’s fame made him an attention-grabbing figure in an otherwise quiet industry. And, despite being found dead on Tuesday, he’s poised to win an election to the state Legislature in less than three weeks.

Hof, who starred in the HBO reality series “Cathouse,” marketed himself as a Donald Trump-style Republican in his race for a heavily GOP Assembly district that includes wide stretches of desert where nuclear bombs were once tested.
His body was found at his Love Ranch brothel outside Las Vegas following a weekend of parties celebrating his 72nd birthday. Guests included porn actor Ron Jeremy, “Hollywood Madam” Heidi Fleiss, former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio and a mix of local politicians and friends….

While waging a no-holds-barred campaign, Hof’s incendiary style drew fans and well-known supporters such as Trump adviser Roger Stone and Arpaio. But it also brought scrutiny to Hof’s businesses and alienated him from the state’s GOP establishment.
Nevada is the only state to allow legal prostitution, which occurs at about 20 licensed brothels in mostly rural areas.

Most brothel owners keep a low profile, offering few interviews and buying only subtle advertising. But Hof had a penchant for splashy billboards and stunts that included helping several women “auction” their virginity….
If Hof wins on Nov. 6, county officials will nominate another Republican to fill the vacancy….

Billing himself as “the Trump of Pahrump,” Hof wrote a memoir in 2015 titled “The Art of the Pimp,” akin to Trump’s book “The Art of the Deal.” After winning the primary, he credited the president with paving the way by proving a candidate could upend establishment politics and win.
Trump “was the Christopher Columbus for me,” Hof told The Associated Press. “He found the way and I jumped on it.”
Hof, who was born in Phoenix in 1946, owned several gas stations and other small businesses before moving to Nevada in the 1970s.
He had two daughters, who are both adults and were estranged from him for years, Muth said. Hof also had an ex-wife, but Muth did not know her whereabouts or details about her.
In 1992, Hof bought his first brothel and eventually grew his empire to six, including an Area 51-themed brothel. He began selling some of the properties this year as he faced regulatory problems in southern Nevada and a push to outlaw licensed bordellos in the two counties where he operated.

Hof said he was downsizing to focus on politics, which he called “a dirty business.” He said the anti-brothel push, the regulatory problems and multiple allegations of sexual assault against him were politically motivated.
Three of the allegations from prostitutes never resulted in charges. Few details have been released about a fourth allegation that the Nevada Department of Public Safety was investigating. It was made in September by a woman who reported at a hospital that Hof had raped her.
Hof denied all of the accusations….
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/10/17/nevadas-famous-pimp-expected-to-win-election-despite-death/23564404/

After delays, trial set for November in Casa Isla abuse case By Shira Schoenberg
BOSTON — More than three years ago, eight staff members at a Department of Youth Services facility were arrested for allegedly beating adolescent boys who were detained there.
The criminal case is expected to go to trial in Suffolk Superior Court in November.

Attorneys involved in the case say the delays were mostly a matter of logistics, a huge amount of evidence and dealing with motions. The trial is expected to shed light on the environment at the Casa Isla detention facility in Boston, where boys were allegedly beaten, sexually assaulted and given alcohol and pornography, according to court documents.

“The defendants, staff members who were responsible for taking care of and protecting the residents in their care, instilled a culture of fear at the Casa Isla program in order to make the residents comply with the program’s rules and not cause more work for the defendants,” wrote Assistant District Attorney Sarah Stancato McEvoy in a filing asking for permission to introduce evidence not tied directly to specific assault allegations.

Victims of the abuse and their family members have separately filed three lawsuits against the state; Volunteers of America of Massachusetts, which had a state contract to run Casa Isla; and individual staff members.
Casa Isla was a youth detention facility for boys committed by the courts to the custody of the state Department of Youth Services. It housed approximately 100 adolescent boys each year until it was closed in 2014 amid an investigation into the alleged abuse….
https://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2018/10/after_delays_trial_set_for_nov.html

Scott Morrison’s national apology to Australian survivors and victims of child sexual abuse – full speech
Full text of the apology speech for institutional child sexual abuse as delivered in parliament on Monday

….Today, Australia confronts a trauma – an abomination – hiding in plain sight for far too long.
Today, we confront a question too horrible to ask, let alone answer.
Why weren’t the children of our nation loved, nurtured and protected?
Why was their trust betrayed?
Why did those who know cover it up?
Why were the cries of children and parents ignored?
Why was our system of justice blind to injustice?
Why has it taken so long to act?
Why were other things more important than this, the care of innocent children?
Why didn’t we believe?
Today we dare to ask these questions, and finally acknowledge and confront the lost screams of our children.

While we can’t be so vain to pretend to answers, we must be so humble to fall before those who were forsaken and beg to them our apology….
Look up at the galleries, look at the Great Hall, look outside this place and you will see men and women from every walk of life, from every generation, and every part of our land.
Crushed, abused, discarded and forgotten.
The crimes of ritual sexual abuse happened in schools, churches, youth groups, scout troops, orphanages, foster homes, sporting clubs, group homes, charities, and in family homes as well.
It happened anywhere a predator thought they could get away with it, and the systems within these organisations allowed it to happen and turned a blind eye.

It happened day after day, week after week, month after month, and decade after decade. Unrelenting torment.
When a child spoke up, they weren’t believed and the crimes continued with impunity.
One survivor told me that when he told a teacher of his abuse, that teacher then became his next abuser.
Trust broken.
Innocence betrayed.

Power and position exploited for evil dark crimes.
A survivor named Faye told the royal commission: “Nothing takes the memories away. It happened 53 years ago and it’s still affecting me.”
One survivor named Ann said: “My mother believed them rather than me.”….
The foundations of our actions are the findings and recommendations of the royal commission, initiated by Prime Minister Gillard.
The steady compassionate hand of the commissioners and staff resulted in 17,000 survivors coming forward and nearly 8,000 of them recounting their abuse in private sessions of the commission.
We are all grateful to the survivors who gave evidence to the commission. It is because of your strength and your courage that we are gathered here today.

Many of the commissioners and staff are also with us today and I thank them also.
Mr Speaker, acting on the recommendations of the royal commission with concrete action gives practical meaning to today’s apology….
These survivors also need to be heard, and believed, and responded to with services to address their needs. So today, I commit to fund the establishment of a national centre of excellence, and I call on the states and territories to work as partners in this venture. This centre will be the place to raise awareness and understanding of the impacts of child sexual abuse, to deal with the stigma, to support help seeking and guide best practice for training and other services.
All of this is just the start.
The Australian government has not rejected a single recommendation of the royal commission….
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/oct/22/scott-morrisons-national-apology-to-australian-survivors-and-victims-of-child-sexual-abuse-full-speech

German court refuses to imprison cult leader linked to child abuse
Colonia Dignidad was founded in Chile by a former Nazi in 1961. For years, the cult was cut off, hiding sexual abuse and torture. Now its German doctor has avoided prison despite convictions for aiding child abuse.
By Grace Dobush September 27, 2018

For decades after World War II, hundreds of people, many of them German and former Nazis, lived in a secluded enclave in Chile called Colonia Dignidad. The colony’s peaceful facade hid much darker things, a totalitarian religious cult fueled by fear. Longtime leader and ex-Nazi Paul Schäfer was convicted of the sexual abuse of children in 2006, and the group is believed to have carried out torture for the secret police of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Many people were killed at the hillside location.

Hartmut Hopp was a close associate of Mr. Schäfer’s, working as a doctor in the colony and sometimes acting as its spokesman. In 2011, he was sentenced to five years in prison for 16 counts of aiding the sexual abuse of children over several decades. But he fled to Germany shortly thereafter, where he was protected from extradition as a German citizen. Unperturbed, Chile pushed for German courts to enforce his sentence, and a case was launched.

This week, it came to an end at a regional court in Düsseldorf. It decided not to enforce the Chilean verdict, finding that it had failed to prove Mr. Hopp had commited any offences punishable under German law. The ruling means the 74-year-old will not serve any prison time. German prosecutors are now considering filing new charges, not only accusing him of aiding child abuse but of complicity in the 1973 murder of three opposition activists in Chile and the forced administration of psychoactive drugs.

Colonia Dignidad was rotten from the start. Mr. Schäfer, a lay preacher who was accused of sexual abuse of children in Germany, founded the colony with utopian ideals in 1961 after seeking refuge in Chile at the end of World War II. It looked like a quaint Bavarian village and offered local people essential services with its hospital and schools.
Accusations of sexual abuse, imprisonment, hard labor and forced medication arose early on but were swept under the rug. After Pinochet’s junta took control of Chile in 1973, Colonia Dignidad enjoyed special protections for providing the regime with weapons and the location for a torture center.

The commune was under Mr. Schäfer’s strict control, with men separated from women, children separated from parents. People living in Colonia Dignidad adopted Chilean children from poor families, continually providing new victims for Mr. Schäfer, nicknamed the “permanent uncle.” Victims estimate he abused more than 30,000 boys over 30 years.

In 1997, Chilean prosecutors filed charges against Mr. Schäfer, who then fled to Argentina. He was arrested in 2005 and convicted in 2006 of sexually abusing 25 children. He died in a Chilean prison four years later aged 88….
https://global.handelsblatt.com/politics/colonia-dignidad-german-cult-chile-nazi-colony-hartmut-hopp-paul-schaefer-schafer-chile-colonia-dignidad-967032

Corey Feldman Reveals Title of His Long-Awaited Documentary About Child Abuse in Movie Industry
By Us Weekly Staff October 22, 2018

Ready to tell his story. Corey Feldman revealed exclusively to Us Weekly that the title of his upcoming documentary is Truth: the Rape of 2 Coreys.
Hollywood’s Sexual Misconduct Scandals
“I believe this title represents the truth I have been promising to tell and it also represents the Truth of what happened,” Feldman, 47, said in a statement to Us Weekly. “He (Corey Haim) was physically raped, I was physically assaulted and as a result of those actions, and the fact that I had to carry that burden all those years, really it was a raping of not only our emotional lives, but also our collective work and career as The Two Corey’s.”

Feldman was a child actor who starred in a series of ‘80s movies including The Goonies, Stand By Me and The Lost Boys. The actor has alleged in the past that he and Haim, his former costar and best friend who died in 2010 at the age of 38 after struggling with drug addiction, were sexually abused throughout their careers by Hollywood pedophiles.

Celebs Fight Back on Social Media
After The New York Times published an exposé detailing decades of sexual harassment and assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein in October 2017, the former Two Coreys star urged others to speak out and launched an Indiegogo Opens a New Window. campaign Opens a New Window. titled “Corey Feldman’s Truth Campaign” to raise money for a film about his experiences in Hollywood….
https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/corey-feldman-reveals-title-of-his-long-awaited-documentary-about-child-abuse/

Article
Psychiatric Impact of Organized and Ritual Child Sexual Abuse: Cross-Sectional Findings from Individuals Who Report Being Victimized
Johanna Schröder, Susanne Nick, Hertha Richter-Appelt and Peer Briken
Institute for Sex Research and Forensic Psychiatry, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, 20246 Hamburg, Germany
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2018, 15(11), 2417; doi: 10.3390/ijerph15112417

Abstract: Organized and ritual child sexual abuse (ORA) is often rooted in the child’s own family. Empirical evidence on possible associations between ORA and trauma-related symptoms in those who report this kind of extreme and prolonged violence is rare. The aim of our study was to explore socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of the individuals reporting ORA experiences, and to investigate protective as well as promotive factors in the link between ORA and trauma-related symptom severity. Within the framework of a project of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in Germany, we recruited 165 adults who identified themselves as ORA victims via abuse- and trauma-specific networks and mailing lists, and they completed an anonymous online survey. We used variance analyses to examine correlations between several variables in the ORA context and PTSD symptoms (PCL-5) as well as somatoform dissociation (SDQ-5). Results revealed a high psychic strain combined with an adverse health care situation in individuals who report experiences with ORA. Ideological strategies used by perpetrators as well as Dissociative Identity Disorders experienced by those affected are associated with more severe symptoms (?2p = 0.11; ?2p = 0.15), while an exit out of the ORA structures is associated with milder symptoms (?2p = 0.11). Efforts are needed to improve health care services for individuals who experience severe and complex psychiatric disorders due to ORA in their childhood.

1. Introduction
Child sexual abuse (CSA), once thought to be rare, is nowadays accepted as a frequent reality that occurs across a range of cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds worldwide and encompasses many types of sexually abusive acts towards children, including sexual assault, incest, the production and use of child pornography, as well as commercial sexual exploitation [1]. Sexual child abuse involving a network of perpetrators acting repeatedly and jointly on multiple victims is defined as ‘organized abuse’ [2]. Organized abuse that follows a (pseudo-) ideological strategy (e.g., symbols or group activities with religious, magical, or supernatural connotations) in order to frighten and intimidate the children or to force the victims to participate whilst simultaneously accomplishing the perpetrators’ exculpation is referred to as ‘ritual abuse’ [3,4]. Salter further describes ritual abuse as ideological framing in organized CSA contexts, functioning as strategical practices through which abusive groups indoctrinate the victims into a violently misogynistic worldview in order to control them [4]. In other words, ritual abuse occurs when a religious, political, or spiritual authority uses its position of power and the sovereignty to interpret the respective belief system to manipulate and dominate its followers. Since the 1980s, evidence of organized and ritual abuse (ORA) has been consolidated due to studies documenting psychological harm amongst children and adults disclosing such experiences [5]….

5. Conclusions
ORA, defined as organized child sexual abuse where a (pseudo-)ideological (i.e., ritual) content serves as legitimization for violence, is a complex and polarizing issue in mental health care contexts as well as in research. At present, the uncovering and reprocessing of ORA is a problem that remains to be solved in Germany, as well as internationally. Given the paucity of research in this field, we believe that this study contributes to closing this evidence gap, as it presents empirical data on reported practices of ORA and its impact on trauma-related symptom severity in self-identified victims, in which reported ideological/ritual strategies by the perpetrators and an exit out of the ORA structures play a major role. A key policy priority should therefore be to intensify efforts on the understanding of ORA-related structures, as well as the complex clinical presentation of those affected. Services like information websites and exit programs should be developed by experts in the field in order to contribute to generating appropriate treatment services for this group of clients. Mental health professionals and centers specialized in the treatment of severely traumatized clients with CPTSD and dissociative disorders would contribute to a better support of clients who report such trauma histories. The therapeutic process of detachment from perpetrator networks is intense, and supporters of individuals who experience ORA face special difficulties, like, for example, dissociative personality states. Therefore, it is essential to ensure that constant professional supervision is provided to them by professionals who understand the spectrum of possibilities and pitfalls in the treatment…. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/11/2417/htm

Spain police bust ‘black magic’ prostitution ring in Murcia
Spanish police say they have rescued 15 transgender Brazilians from forced prostitution in the city of Murcia.
The victims were beaten, forced to use and sell drugs, and often kept locked inside a flat, officials say.
They are also said to have been threatened with the use of black magic if they did not comply.
Objects related to the ritual-filled Santería religion were found in the flat. Thirteen suspects were detained for allegedly running the ring.
The authorities say the ring was headed by Brazilian who worked with associates to recruit vulnerable young people in Brazil…. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46049213

North Korea: Sexual abuse of women ‘common’, report claims
North Korean officials commit sexual abuse against women with near total impunity, a report has claimed. Human Rights Watch added that it is so common it has become part of ordinary life.
The report is based on interviews with 62 North Koreans who fled the country. They gave detailed accounts of rape and sexual abuse. HRW said it revealed a culture of open, unaddressed abuse, particularly from men in positions of power. Oh Jung-hee, a former trader in her 40s told Human Rights Watch (HRW): “They consider us [sex] toys. We are at the mercy of men.” “Sometimes, out of nowhere, you cry at night and don’t know why.”

Gathering information from inside the secretive state is extremely difficult and reports like this are rare. ‘My life was in his hands’ According to HRW some women expressed that sexual abuse had become so normalised that they did not think it was “unusual” – with some saying it had become accepted as part of everyday life….
The perpetrators include high-ranking party officials, prison facility guards, police and soldiers.

Interviewees told HRW that when an official “picked” a woman, she would have little choice but to comply….
It added that forced abortion, rape and sexual violence had been carried out in prisons or in detention…. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46053342

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