Breaking News for Black America » Rape

3 Women Raped Through Social Networking Site Moco Space

Abena Agyeman-Fisher — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 20:09:07 +0000

If you are a woman and you use social-networking site Moco Space, you may want to slow your roll. In less than four months, three women have been raped after chatting on the website and then meeting up with their new acquaintances, according to MyFoxDetroit.

On Mettetal St., two women met up with men they met on Moco Space months apart only to have a weapon pulled on them and then be sexually assaulted.

LIKE NewsOne On Facebook To Stay Up On Black News Worldwide!

At first, it appeared that authorities had bagged the criminal once they locked up Terrell Lewis (pictured), who was charged with criminal sexual conduct and armed robbery. But surprisingly, another women was a assaulted after meeting a man at a local bar days later. One Detroit resident says women shouldn’t meet with unknown men in remote places:

“Individuals are meeting people on a social networking site, they should meet someplace that’s more of a public forum, maybe the mall, maybe a restaurant, something like that [where there are] going to be a lot of people. To meet at a house and you just met over the internet to me is a … lot dangerous, obviously, for these young ladies,” said Keith Lenton.

While this sexual assault through Moco Space may seem like a local issue, a 20-year-old man was busted for having consensual sex with a 15-year-old through the website in San Diego back in 2010. 10 News reports:

Sheriff’s detectives said Jose Adrian Cano met the 15-year-old girl online through the website, Mocospace, which is also a popular phone application. During a press conference Wednesday, detectives said the two corresponded for about a month. Det. Pete Carrillo said Cano allegedly picked the girl up from school, had sex with her and dropped her off last Friday.

Cano was reportedly arrested while he was on his way to meet yet another girl he met on the website.

Detroit authorities are asking anyone who has been assaulted to to call the Detroit Police Sex Crimes unit at (313) 596-1950; or Crime Stoppers of Michigan at (800) SPEAK-UP (773-2587). Anonymous tips can also be given online at www.1800speakup.org; or via text at 74637.

SEE ALSO:

Google Seeking Full-Time Doodler

Zimmerman Wants New Trial Judge

Fox’s Greg Kelly Accused Of Rape

cganemccalla — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:22:31 +0000

NEW YORK- Greg Kelly, the son of Ray Kelly, the NYPD commissioner, has been accused of rape. Greg Kelly is also the host of the Fox show, “Good Day New York.”

SEE ALSO: World’s Oldest Dog Dies

An unnamed woman claims Greg Kelly had drinks with her and then raped her after they went to her office in October. Greg Kelly has not been criminally charged.

The New York Daily News reports:

The police commissioner became aware of the accusation against his son when a man, claiming to be her boyfriend — apparently enraged over the alleged attack — recently approached the commissioner at a public event.

“He said, ‘Your son ruined my girlfriend’s life,” said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne. “The commissioner said ‘Well, what do you mean?’ He said he didn’t want to talk about it here so the commissioner told him to send a letter.”

Middle School “Men Of Strength” Learn To Fight Rape

cganemccalla — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 21:19:07 +0000

NEW YORK-An afterschool program called Men of Strength (MOST) at Junior High School 217 in Briarwood, Queens is teaching young men to respect women and fight against rape.

Neil Irvin, the executive director of Men Can Stop Rape, stared MOST so young men can be protectors of their community.

The New York Daily News reports:

“We discuss how traditional masculinity contributes to sexual assault and other forms of men’s violence against women,” he said.

There are MOST clubs in three city schools and others scattered across the nation.

Once a week, the kids and group leaders talk frankly about what it means to get a woman’s consent, sexual health and responsibility.

Rapist Who Had Penis Bitten Off Sentenced To 25 Years In Jamaica

cganemccalla — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 20:27:47 +0000

KINGSTON-Patrick Drysdale, who was convicted of three separate cases of rape, including one where he forced a woman to perform oral sex on him by gunpoint before she almost severed his penis by biting it has been convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Drysdale was convicted of robbery with aggravation, indecent assault, wounding with intent and illegal possession of firearm.

The Jamaica Star reports:

The police found Drysdale at the hospital suffering from an injury to the penis. When questioned he said that he was in bed with a woman when her jealous lover came home and hit him with a piece of chain on his penis. The penis which was bandaged was almost severed.

The Crown led evidence that on June 20, 2008, Drysdale committed the offences in Stony Hill, St Andrew. He went to the homes of three women, robbed and raped two of them, indecently assaulted the third woman and then wounded her.

Innocent Man Fully Exonerated Of Rape Charges After 27 Years

NewsOne Staff — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 21:43:04 +0000

A virginia man who spent 27 years behind bars for a rape he did not commit was officially declared an innocent man by a Virginia appeals court on Tuesday.

Shocking! Female ‘Ritual Rapists’ on Trial in Zimbabwe

NewsOne Staff — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:33:26 +0000

After a year-long investigation, three women are going on trial for their alleged involvement in a nationwide syndicate of women raping men to use their semen in magic ritual, Zimbabwean police say.

According to reports, the women were arrested after police found them driving around with 31 used condoms in their car. The semen is believed to bring success in business.

One anonymous man interviewed on TV claimed women kidnapped him, injected him with something “that gave me a strong sexual desire,” and when they were finished they dumped him naked in the countryside.

Female Teacher Charged With Drugging And Raping 6th Grader

cganemccalla — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:44:20 +0000

NEW YORK-Claudia Tillery, a teacher at Decatur School, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, has been charged with with raping a male student and giving him drugs and alcohol.

According to police, the student is now fourteen and claims to have had a relationship with Tillery for two years.

Debonair “Casanova” Found Guilty Of Raping Woman

NewsOne Staff — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 22:25:37 +0000

NEW YORK — An Ivory Coast native accused of pretending to be a French-language TV journalist was convicted Monday of raping one woman and harassing three others, but was acquitted of a fifth sexual attack.

Hugues-Denver Akassy had said the sexual encounters were consensual and the other allegations resulted from misunderstandings.

Prosecutors said Akassy, 43, charmed the women with a debonair demeanor and a phony persona, then became a sexually aggressive stalker. They said Akassy, who was homeless, claimed to be buying a brownstone and held himself out as an accomplished journalist on a website rife with plagiarized praise written about real journalists.

“What we’re talking about here is a person who initiates every relationship in his life with a falsehood,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Jessica Troy told jurors in a closing argument last week. “And I submit to you, there is no reason to think he is honest about anything.”

Four women testified; the one who said she was raped did not. Those who testified said Akassy suavely struck up conversations with them on the street and other public places around the city. Some said they then met him for wine-and-cheese picnics in parks and other dates before he became threatening with unwanted advances.

When things soured, he often wrote the women profane and vitriolic emails, which jurors saw during the trial. In some cases, Akassy showed up outside the women’s apartment buildings or at their workplaces, they said.

Akassy testified that the women willingly engaged in the sexual encounters — on a subway grate in a park, in a stairwell of an apartment building. Overall, he and his lawyers said, the accusations were leveled by troubled women who misconstrued and overreacted to his overtures.

“Ladies and gentlemen, misinterpretation seems to be a theme that runs through these cases,” defense lawyer Glenn Hardy said.

Akassy said he didn’t write the now-gone website.

Suave “Ladies Man” On Trial For 5 Sexual Assaults

NewsOne Staff — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:47:53 +0000

NEW YORK— A travel agent said Tuesday she was flattered when a debonair journalist approached her in Central Park but the flirtation took a violent turn six months later when he forced her to perform a sex act in the stairwell of her apartment building and then told her she liked it.

The woman said Ivory Coast native Hugues Akassy approached her in May 2007 and struck up a conversation.

“He mentioned that he was an international journalist,” she testified in Manhattan state Supreme Court, where he’s being tried for crimes including assault against five women.

Kahn Admits To Sex With Maid, But No Violence Involved

DNA Evidence Frees Convicted Rapist After 30 Years In Jail

Akassy, who’s in his early 40s, wooed the women by portraying himself falsely as a French-language TV journalist, prosecutors say. He has pleaded not guilty.

The travel agent said she agreed to go to a bar with Akassy and “his hands started wandering around my chest, and he started to kiss me.” She said she rejected his advances and told him she was married.

But she met him several times over the next few months, joining him for a picnic once and taking him to five work-related seminars.

“I actually thought he was handsome, intriguing, debonair,” the woman said. “I was flattered.”

It was after the last of the seminars, in November 2007, that she invited Akassy to admire the view from the rooftop of her East Side apartment building, she said.

She said he started to make advances again and she told him, “I’m not interested.”

Back in the elevator, the woman said, Akassy pressed the button for her floor, though she had no intention of letting him into her ninth-floor apartment. But he forced her out of the elevator and into the nearby stairwell, she said.

The woman said Akassy pushed her onto her knees, lowered his pants and forced her to perform oral sex on him.

“It was over in a flash,” she said, adding that Akassy taunted her by saying, “See, I told you you like it. That wasn’t so bad, was it? You crazy American woman.”

Akassy’s attorney, Glenn Hardy, asked the woman why she didn’t scream, and she replied, “I was very afraid.”

The woman didn’t report an assault until 2010, when she saw a news account of another attack with which Akassy has been charged.

Accusations against Akassy include camping out on one woman’s fire escape, berating another woman on the street after she had her boyfriend ask him to leave her alone and forcing a third woman, a Russian tourist, to have sex with him after inviting her to picnic with him in a park.

His trial before Judge Jill Konviser started Thursday.

Dallas Rapist May Be Targeting Black Sorority Members

NewsOne Staff — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:28:55 +0000

DALLAS — Officials say a rapist appears to be targeting members of the predominantly black Delta Sigma Theta sorority in suburban Dallas.

Also read: When I Studied Abroad: Morocco

Also read: Best Places to Travel Alone: Australia

Also read: Travel Deal of the Week: San Juan, Puerto Rico

In four cases over 11 months, women, all in their mid-50s to mid-60s, were attacked in their homes in Plano, Coppell and the Denton County community of Shady Shores.

The Dallas Morning News reports that, during the assaults, the man has revealed that he knows personal information about the victims

Plano police also released video and photos of a man who could be connected to one attack. He is thought to be black, in his late 30s to mid-40s, 5 feet 7 to 6 feet tall and 250 to 300 pounds. He appears to have a thin, well-trimmed beard and short hair, possibly with a receding hairline.

Black Women Criticize “SlutWalk” Organization In Open Letter

cganemccalla — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:07:39 +0000

A group of African American anti-violence advocates, activists, scholars, organizational and spiritual leaders have written an open letter to the anti-rape and violence against women organization, “SlutWalk.”

“SlutWalk” was founded to combat people that blame women that were victims of sexual assault.

Large Crowds Protest Rape Charge Acquittal Of NYC Police Officers

Egyptian Army Gave “Virginity Tests” To Female Protesters

The Huffington Post reports:

We are deeply concerned. As Black women and girls we find no space in SlutWalk, no space for participation and to unequivocally denounce rape and sexual assault as we have experienced it. We are perplexed by the use of the term “slut” and by any implication that this word, much like the word “Ho” or the “N” word should be re-appropriated. The way in which we are perceived and what happens to us before, during and after sexual assault crosses the boundaries of our mode of dress. Much of this is tied to our particular history. In the United States, where slavery constructed Black female sexualities, Jim Crow kidnappings, rape and lynchings, gender misrepresentations, and more recently, where the Black female immigrant struggle combine, “slut” has different associations for Black women. We do not recognize ourselves nor do we see our lived experiences reflected within SlutWalk and especially not in its brand and its label.

As Black women, we do not have the privilege or the space to call ourselves “slut” without validating the already historically entrenched ideology and recurring messages about what and who the Black woman is. We don’t have the privilege to play on destructive representations burned in our collective minds, on our bodies and souls for generations. Although we understand the valid impetus behind the use of the word “slut” as language to frame and brand an anti-rape movement, we are gravely concerned. For us the trivialization of rape and the absence of justice are viciously intertwined with narratives of sexual surveillance, legal access and availability to our personhood. It is tied to institutionalized ideology about our bodies as sexualized objects of property, as spectacles of sexuality and deviant sexual desire. It is tied to notions about our clothed or unclothed bodies as unable to be raped whether on the auction block, in the fields or on living room television screens. The perception and wholesale acceptance of speculations about what the Black woman wants, what she needs and what she deserves has truly, long crossed the boundaries of her mode of dress.

Cruel! Man Shot After Being Forced To Perform Fellatio

NewsOne Staff — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:29:07 +0000

LOUISVILLE, KY- A man faces multiple charges after forcing another man to perform sexual favors on him at gunpoint.

According to police reports, Anton L. Malone, 19, forced the victim to perform oral sex on him twice at gunpoint before opening fire on him.

How The DSK Rape Case Fell Apart

cganemccalla — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 16:49:21 +0000

NEW YORK — After the rape case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn fell apart, many people have been pointing figures at the accuser, Nafissatou Diallo.

Still there are many political and social reasons the case was dropped, including the drastically different backgrounds of the accuser and the accused.

The Daily Beast Reports:

And Diallo? Her biography is, in fact, a long chronicle of victimization in Africa and in the U.S. She has neither the intellectual nor the financial resources to survive without her job as a maid, or to capitalize on her humiliating celebrity. She can’t read or write. And the gamble that in years to come she may collect a settlement from Strauss-Kahn is not a good bet, now that he’s on his way back to Paris. He may no longer be the leading contender to win the presidential elections there next year, as he was before his arrest. But he’s brilliant and versatile, he’s still got powerful friends, and France is his home turf.

The decision to dismiss was based on a “careful and deliberative review of all the evidence,” Vance said. Questions about the maid’s story appear in hindsight to have made the outcome almost inevitable, and there were hints of trouble from the start. Illuzzi-Orbon was a 23-year veteran of homicide prosecutions—not sex crimes—and the head of Vance’s new Hate Crimes Unit when he put her in charge of the DSK prosecution. Another assistant prosecutor, who’d headed the Sex Crimes Unit for many years, had been moved aside and was on her way out. Illuzzi-Orbon had a reputation as a bulldog in the courtroom. Friends of Diallo say she told them she’d never lost a trial, and she didn’t intend to start now. But rape prosecutions weren’t her specialty.

Shocking! Female Rapists Terrorize Men In Zimbabwe

cganemccalla — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 13:31:16 +0000

ZIMBABWE — Police in Zimbabwe are searching for a group of women who are drugging men and raping them at gunpoint.

The Daily Nation reports:

“We appeal to members of the public to pass any information to the police regarding three women who have gone on a spree of kidnapping and indecently assaulting young men around town,” Harare police boss Angeline Guvamombe said in a statement.

“The women drive in posh cars and offer their unsuspecting victims lifts before spraying some liquid substance on their faces.

“Once the victim is drowsy, he is taken to a secluded place or house where he is forced to have sex,” said Ms Guvamombe. “I want to warn these criminals that their days are numbered,” she added.

Rosa Parks Essay Reveals She Was Almost Raped By A White Man

NewsOne Staff — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 14:05:51 +0000

NEW YORK — Long before Rosa Parks was hailed as the “mother of the civil rights movement,” she wrote a detailed and harrowing account of nearly being raped by a white neighbor who employed her as a housekeeper in 1931.

The six-page essay, written in her own hand many years after the incident, is among thousands of her personal items currently residing in the Manhattan warehouse and cramped offices of Guernsey’s Auctioneers, which has been selected by a Michigan court to find an institution to buy and preserve the complete archive.

Civil rights historian Danielle McGuire said she had never before heard of the attempted rape of Parks and called the find among Parks’ papers astounding.

It helps explain what triggered Parks’ lifelong campaign against the ritualistic rape of black women by white men, said McGuire, whose recent book “At the Dark End of the Street” examines how economic intimidation and sexual violence were used to derail the freedom movement and how it went unpunished during the Jim Crow era.

“I thought it was because of the stories that she had heard. But this gives a much more personal context to that,” said McGuire, an assistant professor of history at Wayne State University in Detroit. Her book recounts Parks’ role in investigating for the NAACP the case of Recy Taylor, a young sharecropper raped by a group of white men in 1944.

Of her own experience, Parks wrote, “He offered me a drink of whiskey, which I promptly and vehemently refused. . He moved nearer to me and put his hand on my waist. I was very frightened by now.”

“He liked me. .. he didn’t want me to be lonely and would I be sweet to him. He had money to give me for accepting his attentions,” she wrote.

“I was ready to die but give my consent never. Never, never.”

Most people know the story of Parks, a black, middle-aged seamstress who refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955. Guernsey’s President Arlan Ettinger said her personal papers reveal a much more complex individual, one who spent a lifetime fighting for racial equality and against the sexual violence of black women.

Parks is credited with inspiring the civil rights movement with her solitary act of defiance on Dec. 1, 1955, that led to the Supreme Court outlawing segregation on buses. She received the nation’s two highest honors in her lifetime, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor.

She died in 2005 at age 92, leaving the trove of personal correspondence, papers relating to her work for the Montgomery branch of the NAACP, tributes from presidents and world leaders, school books, family bibles, clothing, furniture and more – about 8,000 items in all.

“It is wonderful and breathtaking,” Ettinger said. “It will be up to the institution that ends up with it to make this material known to the world.”

Proceeds from the sale will go to resolve a dispute over her estate, divided between her relatives and the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development that she created in 1987.

Guernsey’s, known for its sale of iconic and celebrity collections, took an inventory of Parks’ homes in Detroit soon after she died and is looking for an institution to buy her archive, which Ettinger described as the most complete he’s ever seen.

The only thing missing, he quipped, is the bus itself. The bus is in The Henry Ford, a museum in Dearborn, Mich.

The archive reveals an infinitely complex individual, Ettinger said.

Parks worked on many cases with the NAACP, including the Scottsboro defense of nine black teenage boys accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. She was involved in the black power conventions in the 1970s and the anti-apartheid movement in the 1990s.

Parks wrote on anything she could get her hands on. The backs of church pamphlets and NAACP flyers are filled with her thoughts and observations.

There are detailed notes on how African-American citizens should comport themselves during the bus boycott following her arrest that lasted 382 days and about the organization that led it, the Montgomery Improvement Association, headed by a young pastor named the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Elsewhere, she laments about life under the oppressive Jim Crow laws and asks what is wrong with the world when her jailer refuses her a drink of water.

She also vividly recalls an incident when she was 10 years old involving a white boy who threatened to hit her. Demonstrating some of the determination she exhibited on the bus decades later, Parks writes “I picked up a small piece of brick and drew back to strike him if he should hit me. I was angry. He went his way without further comment.”

Parks’ memoirs include one with author Jim Haskins and another with one of her attorneys in the early 1990s, but by then said McGuire, “her story was pretty much well-rehearsed, and limited to her time in Montgomery and the bus incident.”

“Her story had become mythic and iconic … I can’t imagine what that felt like for her to have a whole history of activism and political work erased and turned almost into a cartoon character,” said McGuire.

Guernsey’s has talked to about 20 museums, libraries, university and churches about buying the archive over the past three years.

“There hasn’t been a group that didn’t desperately want it but had to face the reality whether they could afford it,” Ettinger said, adding that he was currently in discussions with three separate entities – an institution and two individuals who could buy the archive with the intention of donating it to a museum or other cultural institution.

He declined to give an exact figure but said $8 million to $10 million was in the “ballpark.”

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a research library of the New York Public Library, was among the interested institutions.

Its new director, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, said the center has very little material on Parks and would love to own some of her papers but because the archive is being sold as a single collection, it took the Schomburg out of the running.

“She is a witness to the beginning and the maturation of the civil rights movement. . She walked as close to Martin Luther King Jr., as you can get at the beginning of the movement,” Muhammad said.

McGuire wondered why Parks omitted the attempted rape incident from her memoirs but included the story about the little boy who threatened her.

“It shows some kind of conscious effort in shaping her own legacy but also, I think, speaks to the issue of respectability. She doesn’t necessarily feel comfortable telling the world about what happened,” she said. “But she’s contemplating telling people about it because she’s written it down.”

Google Rosa Parks Logo: Site Honors 55th Bus Anniversary

Rosa Parks Bus Boycott Legacy Lives On 55 Years Later

Defamation? Strauss-Kahn Rape Accuser Says She Was Misquoted‎

NewsOne Staff — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 12:02:24 +0000

NEW YORK — The hotel maid accusing Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sex assault has been wrongfully portrayed as a money-grubbing opportunist in accounts of her recorded remarks to an incarcerated friend, her lawyer said Wednesday after they reviewed the tapes during a nearly eight-hour meeting with prosecutors.

The tapes also established that housekeeper Nafissatou Diallo recounted the attack to the man during their first conversation, a day after the alleged attack – showing, her lawyer said, that her focus was on what had happened to her, not on the former International Monetary Fund leader’s wealth or stature.

“Information has been put out there about Ms. Diallo that now I know was false. She never was scheming to take DSK’s money, and that’s a fact,” said her attorney, Kenneth Thompson, referring to Strauss-Kahn by his initials. Diallo herself didn’t speak to reporters, and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office declined to comment on the meeting.

The marathon session marked the 32-year-old’s first meeting with prosecutors since they said July 1 they had doubts about her credibility because she hadn’t been truthful about her background or what she did right after the May 14 encounter. Strauss-Kahn denies the charges, and his lawyers are calling for the case to be dismissed.

Diallo’s sit-down with prosecutors came days after she went public in interviews with Newsweek and ABC News, pressing for prosecutors to keep pursuing the case. Prosecutors and Strauss-Kahn’s attorneys said Tuesday they had agreed to postpone his next court date from Aug. 1 to Aug. 23, when prosecutors could announce whether they will go forward with the case.

Strauss-Kahn, who had been considered a promising French presidential contender, was arrested after Diallo (whose name is pronounced na-fee-SAH’-too dee-AH’-loh) said he forced her to perform oral sex, manhandled her and ripped down her stockings in his luxury suite at the Sofitel Hotel near Manhattan’s Times Square. Traces of Strauss-Kahn’s semen were found on her work uniform. He has been charged with attempted rape and other crimes.

Prosecutors have said the case has been weakened by Diallo’s fabrications, including a compelling story she told them of having been gang-raped in her native Guinea. The widowed immigrant, who has a 15-year-old daughter, says she had embellished her life story to gain asylum in the U.S., and what prosecutors call inconsistencies in her account of her actions right after the alleged attack were the result of a misunderstanding.

Thompson said he, Diallo, prosecutors and an interpreter spent hours Wednesday on another question that has arisen about her associations and conduct: her recorded conversations with a friend who is being held in an Arizona immigration detention center after pleading guilty in a marijuana case. The two spoke on the recording in Fulani, a West African language.

The tapes have not been released, and Thompson said he was allowed to hear them Wednesday but didn’t get copies of them. They contrast with a New York Times account of what Diallo had said, according to Thompson. The newspaper has reported, citing an anonymous law enforcement official, that Diallo said “words to the effect of, `Don’t worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I’m doing’” to her friend shortly after Strauss-Kahn’s arrest.
Story continues below

But on the tapes, her mentions of Strauss-Kahn’s resources and her knowing what to do are made at different points, and in contexts that cast them in a considerably different light, Thompson said.

In her first conversation with the man, she didn’t mention Strauss-Kahn’s wealth at all, instead telling her friend that “someone tried to rape me, and that he’s a powerful, big man,” who had tried to take her clothes off, pushed her, and ultimately made her do something against her will, Thompson said.

In a subsequent conversation, she told her friend that her attacker “is powerful and rich,” her lawyer said. But it was earlier in that conversation – and not in connection with any mention of Strauss-Kahn’s status – that she said “I know what to do” to signal that she gone to authorities, planned to hire a lawyer and would be all right, Thompson said.

“Her primary focus was on what happened to her, how she was coping with the fact that she had almost been raped,” he said.

The Associated Press has previously reported that Diallo alluded to Strauss-Kahn’s wealth in a recorded conversation days after the ex-IMF leader’s arrest, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters not made public in court.

While Thompson said Diallo wasn’t focused on Strauss-Kahn’s money, he said it would be her right to sue him over the encounter.

“There is nothing wrong with a woman who’s almost been raped filing a lawsuit to stand up for her dignity as a woman,” the lawyer said.

Prosecutors and Diallo have had a tense relationship in recent weeks. Her last meeting with prosecutors, in late June, ended with her in tears as prosecutors asked about her past and life, Thompson has said. This month, he called on the district attorney’s office to recuse itself and arrange for a special prosecutor.

But the rift appeared to close a bit Wednesday, at least on Diallo’s end, with Thompson calling prosecutors “gracious” for accommodating his request to hear the recording. He said he didn’t anticipate further meetings this week.

The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they come forward publicly, as Diallo has done.

Diallo plans to join religious, women’s and African community groups Thursday at a Brooklyn Christian center to thank New Yorkers who support her.

Silence Broken! Rape Accuser Speaks Out: “I Want Justice!”

DSK Accuser’s Fiance Says She’s “Very Honest”

Disturbing! Pastor Allegedly Rapes 12-Year-Old Girl 9 Times

NewsOne Staff — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 20:56:57 +0000

NORTH CAROLINA — The former pastor of the North Carolina church New Life Christian Center, Keith Devon Pitts, has been convicted of nine counts of sexual abuse with the same girl.

WCNC News reports that “his nine counts include sex offense of a child and taking indecent liberties with a child.”

14 Men Charged In Sex Assaults Of Texas Girl

NewsOne Staff — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 10:43:35 +0000

LIBERTY, Texas — More than a dozen men accused of taking part in a series of sexual assaults on an 11-year-old girl are expected in court Wednesday in a case that has divided and horrified their southeast Texas town.

The 14 men, who along with five juvenile boys are facing charges, are scheduled to be in a state district courtroom in Liberty for status updates. The investigation began in December, after one of the girl’s friends told a teacher he had seen a lurid cell phone video that showed the girl being raped in an abandoned trailer.

Authorities say the girl was assaulted on at least five occasions, sometimes by as many as seven or eight young men or boys at a time, from mid-September to early December in Cleveland, a small city about 45 miles northeast of Houston. The suspects range in age from a middle-school student to a 27-year-old, and include two star athletes at the local high school as well as adults with criminal records.

Most of the adult suspects face charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child, while four face a charge of continuous sexual abuse of a child. Most have pleaded not guilty and are free on bond, while one, 26-year-old Marcus Porchia, was charged after his arrest with sexually assaulting another girl in an unrelated case.

The case shined a sometimes unflattering spotlight on Cleveland after some in the town of about 9,000 residents suggested the girl was culpable in part for what happened, claiming she wore makeup and looked older. Some also accused her parents, immigrants from Mexico, of not watching her more closely. Those suggestions were sharply criticized by many Cleveland residents and by community and religious groups outside the city.

Also complicating the case was a belief by many in the predominantly black neighborhood where several of the suspects live that the arrests were racially motivated. All of the suspects are black, while the girl is Hispanic.

The girl, now 12, remains in foster care as her parents, who have health problems and moved out of Cleveland after receiving threatening phone calls, work with state child welfare authorities to get her back.

A gag order is preventing those connected to the case from commenting.

Authorities began investigating after the girl’s friend told a teacher he had seen a video that had been passed around among classmates that showed the girl being attacked. Police determined it was recorded inside a mobile home on the city’s northern outskirts.

The girl told investigators she was raped Nov. 28, first at a house near the mobile home and then at the trailer. Indictments allege she also was assaulted in September, October and December.

Police Arrest 16 Men For Gang Rape Of 11-Year-Old Girl

Family Of 11-Year-Old Gang Rape Victim Holds Texas Fundraiser

Girls Assistant Basketball Coach Charged With Rape

NewsOne Staff — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:38:05 +0000

NEW YORK — An assistant girls basketball coach at Murry Bergtraum high school has been charged with second-degree rape for allegedly having sex with two girls and inappropriately touching two others.

Kerbert Dixon, 47, a Queens court officer, is accused of having sex with a 22-year-old since she was 14 and an 18-year-old since she was 16. The alleged “touching” victims were 10 and 8.

Dixon was arrested Tuesday and is being held in lieu of $30,000 bail.

Aid Group Says More Than 100 Raped In Congo Attack

NewsOne Staff — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 16:57:57 +0000

KINSHASA, Congo — An international medical aid group says more than 100 people were raped in a recent attack in Congo’s volatile east.

Megan Hunter of Medicins Sans Frontieres said Thursday that a team in Fizi territory in South Kivu province found more than 100 victims of rapes that occurred between June 10 and 12.

She did not say who might be responsible. The aid group is working with Congolese health officials to get more information.

Rape is used by the various groups of fighters in the central African nation to intimidate, punish and control.

Eastern Congo has been wracked by violence since Rwanda’s 1994 genocide spilled conflict across the border. Hutu militias that participated in the massacres of more than 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus sought refuge in Congo.

Stop Making Excuses For The Men Who Raped An 11-Year-Old Girl

NewsOne Staff — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 15:42:27 +0000

By Regina Bradley

I’ve been keeping up with the horrific gang rape that took place in Cleveland, Texas. I’m unsure which sickens me more – the excuses made for grown men about why the rape took place, who to blame, or how the victim’s childhood is overlooked and dismissed because she “looked like” she wanted or was already having sex.

RELATED: Rose McGowan pictures

I felt a soul-stirring wail come from a dark place.

I flashbacked to hearing those awkward footsteps in my room late at night. It wasn’t a spook or the boogey man, but I had the same fear as if they were there. His hot breath on my neck, I closed my eyes tightly and waited. I remember his weight. I remember his grunting. I remember being afraid to scream because I was supposed to be asleep so I could be well rested for school the next morning. Don’t tattletale. I don’t tattletale. I don’t ask for these visits. Why won’t he leave me alone? And then he clumsily pulls my panties back up and scurries back out my bedroom door.
Was it because I was convenient? Was it my fault my room was next to his? I was nine and in fourth grade. He was a bastard with a bullshit apology.

Although I’m now an adult, that nine year old little girl still sobs when her experience is brought back to the forefront. She sobs when eleven year old girls are accused of looking too grown and setting themselves up to be raped. She screams when popular shows like The Game participate in half-assed empty threats of rape as revenge. She screams when comedians like Lil’ Duval become even more wildly popular with twitter trends like “It Ain’t Rape If…” Well, nationhood, if rape ain’t rape, what is?

I am unable to wrap my mind around how rape culture is fetishized and consumed as trendy. Rape is “okay” because so and so or such and such on TV endorses it. The Game, for example, echoes of a tragic-comedy because of their treatment of rape. Parker, played by actress Meaghan Good, threatens her ex-lover Malik with taunts of rape if he does not have sex with her. She rips her own clothes, screams, “sobs,” and trashes the room to gain attention. A maid walks by and asks if everything is okay. As quickly as Malik pays the maid off for her silence, Parker dries her tears and proceeds to have forced sex with a distraught Malik.

This scene troubled my spirit in many ways. The first is the obvious – Parker’s empty threat of rape to “break” Malik. The second is how easily the maid – also a black woman – is silenced with monetary bribes even though she sensed something was amiss. The third, and arguably most peculiar, is the treatment of Malik’s rape. While Parker did not physically threaten him, Malik was psychologically threatened. This threat forced him to engage in a sexual act. “The morning after,” Parker laughs and teases Malik, who turns his back to her with a look of anger, disgust, and shame on his face.

What becomes complicated, however, is Malik’s return home. He is greeted by his girlfriend, who seduces him at the door. He becomes teary eyed and, assumingly, has sex with his girlfriend as well. This sequence of events re-enforces the stereotypical beliefs that black bodies are hypersexual. It also symbolizes the removal of rape’s pathology for entertainment.

Black women’s’ bodies are, as Abbey Lincoln so fiercely put it, the outhouses of black and white men. Black men’s bodies are considered bestial and sexually insatiable. What we share in common is the use sex as a power move but we lack in its ownership.

Here’s where the trouble further stirs itself: When rape is commodified and consumed as nonthreatening, it has a multi-layered effect. Not only is the little discourse available for rape victims pushed to the fringes, but their ordeals are dismissed as their own doing. What producers of popular culture fail to realize is that there is no guarantee that all the people absorbing their “work” are smart enough to distinguish entertainment from reality, that “these is jokes.”

There is Forrest Gumpage out there that consumes everything for what it is at face value. Are we as a society so fixated on entertainment and scapegoating that we purposefully ignore the ticking time bomb planted in our social interactions? What will it take?

If rape ain’t rape, what the hell is?

Mayor Apologizes For 1944 Gang-Rape Of Black Woman

NewsOne Staff — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 19:35:11 +0000

Recy Taylor, 90, is seen her home in Winter Haven, Fla., in this photo taken Thursday, Oct. 7, 2010. Taylor's brutal sexual assault by seven white men in 1944 in the racially divided South is featured in the book "At The Dark End of the Street." (AP)

ABBEVILLE, Alabama — The mayor of a southeast Alabama town and a state legislator are apologizing to relatives of a black woman raped in 1944 by a gang of white men.

Abbeville Mayor Ryan Blalock expressed his sorrow to relatives of Recy Taylor during a news conference today. The woman’s brother and several other relatives attended.

Now 91 years old, Taylor was 24 and living in her native Henry County when she was gang-raped in Abbeville in 1944. The married woman was walking home from church when she was abducted, assaulted and left on the side of the road in an isolated area.

Two all-white, all-male grand juries declined to bring charges. State Rep. Dexter Grimsley of Newville says police bungled the investigation and harassed Taylor.

Police Arrest 16 Men For Gang Rape Of 11-Year-Old Girl

Less Than Half Of Houston Rape Cases Lead To Arrests

Missing Black Children

Start Gallery

Police Arrest 16 Men For Gang Rape Of 11-Year-Old Girl

NewsOne Staff — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 20:54:29 +0000

An abandoned trailer in Cleveland, Texas in which an 11-year-old girl was gang raped.

Cleveland, Texas– Over a dozen people, ranging from 16 to 27 have been arrested in alleged connection to the horrific gang rape of an 11-year-old girl.

The girl told authorities that at least 20 people assaulted her, and the attack was also captured on video. A 19-year-old, Timothy Ellis, lured her into a abandoned trailer where she was ambushed and sexually assaulted by numerous teenagers and men.

Also read: Cars We Loved Way Back When

The video was seen by a number of students at a local school; helping authorities identify many of the suspects.

“These guys knew she was in middle school,” the girl’s mother, identified only as Maria, told reporters. “You could tell whenever you talked to her. She still loves stuffed teddy bears.”

Suspects in the rape of an 11-year-old girl include (top, l. to r.) Jamarcus Napper; Jared McPherson; Kelvin King; (bottom, l. to r.) Marcus Porchia; Xavier King; Devo Green.

Recommend this post on Facebook. Click button below:

Find out more details at NYdailynews.com

RELATED:

Police: 13-Year-Old Girl Gang-Raped By Three Classmates

NewsOne Staff — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:22:28 +0000

Banning, CA– Three 13-year-old boys have been arrested after police say they admitted to raping a girl in a park playground as she was walking home from school.

Authorities say the three boys grabbed the girl, fondled her and then forced her onto a playground set. That’s where two of the boys held her down while the third raped her, according to police.

The girl reported the attack to school officials on Tuesday, and identified her attackers to them.

VIDEO:

Cops: Coach Fired For Forcing Girl To Perform Sex Acts On Players

cganemccalla — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 22:10:17 +0000

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.-Tony Hillerman Middle School assistant boys’ basketball coach Tomas Vargas was arrested for allegedly asking a 14-year-old girl to perform oral sex on players if she wanted to be team manager. KOAT reports:

Police said she claims Vargas was there with three players. She said Vargas told her she needed to perform oral sex on the players to get hired.

Investigators said Vargas pushed a table into her when she refused, and that she couldn’t leave the room.

Officers said she told them Vargas grabbed the back of her neck and forced her head into one of the player’s laps until she broke free.

Read The Whole Story

Principal Accused Of Having Sex With Students At School

Lawrence Taylor Pleads Guilty To Patronizing Teen Prostitute

cganemccalla — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 20:40:21 +0000

NEW CITY, N.Y. – Former NFL star Lawrence Taylor pleaded guilty Thursday to sexual misconduct and patronizing a prostitute, misdemeanor charges that carry no jail time but require him to register as a sex offender.

The 51-year-old ex-linebacker, who led the New York Giants to Super Bowl titles in 1987 and 1991, will serve six years probation.

“She told me she was 19,” Taylor said in court as he admitted having sex with a prostitute who turned out to be a 16-year-old Bronx runaway.

Lawrence Taylor Pleads Not Guilty To Rape Charge

11 DVD’s Of Sexual Assault Of ‘Severely Disabled’ Found

NewsOne Staff — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 13:59:48 +0000

LOS ANGELES – Graphic video footage obtained by the sheriff’s department shows several men sexually assaulting at least 10 profoundly disabled women, some of them in diapers, officials said Thursday.

The assaults came to light when an unknown man dumped a bundle of 11 DVDs at the Los Angeles County sheriff’s station in March. Attached to the videos was a note saying he had pulled them from a computer hard drive that another man had asked him to clean.

Some of the assaults were carried out in what appeared to be a residential care facility and one of the suspects seemed himself to be disabled.

Detectives have spent the last several months trying to pull clues from the grainy videos. After the footage was enhanced, they were able to capture the images of four men who carried out assaults, though there could be as many as 10 suspects total.

“It shocked the conscience,” said Detective Ron Anderson of the special victims unit, which reviewed the DVDs. “These people are truly defenseless.”

The footage was not released to the public but authorities described what they had seen. In one video, an obese man in a wheelchair is seen pushing himself into a small bedroom while wearing a diaper. His back is covered in scars and he appears to be a paraplegic resident of a care facility.

The man pulls himself onto a woman’s bed, removes both his own and her diaper, then assaults her, authorities said.

“He then hoisted himself onto the floor, scooted across the floor, out of the doorway and disappeared from the camera’s view,” Anderson said.

In another video, a man leads another suspect into a room then leaves him alone to assault a woman. The victims appear to be both mentally and physically disabled and none gives any sort of consent. Some of the assaults occur on beds and one takes place on a collection of bean bags on the floor.

“After one horrendous assault, one of the victims was picked up and thrown back into a wheelchair,” Sgt. Dan Scott said.

Detectives hope that by going public with the case, someone will recognize a suspect or a location where an assault took place. They also want to speak to the man who gave them the videos and stressed that he could remain anonymous.

“He is not in any trouble, we are just seeking more information from him,” Scott said.

The videos were mainly captured by security cameras in the victims’ room, though some recordings are from hand held cameras.

One suspect was wearing a baseball cap with “LA” on it and another has an orange T-shirt that is printed with the year 2008. Authorities think the videos were made locally in the last three years but could have come from anywhere in the country.

Detectives are working with TV show “America’s Most Wanted,” which is planning a segment on the case, Anderson said.

Men Accused Of Videotaping Rape Of 12-Year-Old They Met On The Internet

Two Men Accused Of Raping Woman With Live Snake

NewsOne Staff — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 16:44:04 +0000

AU CLAIRE, Wis. (AP) — Two northwestern Wisconsin men are accused of sexually assaulting a woman with a live snake.

Twenty-four-year-old John Bullock of Altoona and 25-year-old Domonta Jones of Eau Claire pleaded not guilty to the assault Monday in Eau Claire County Circuit Court. Each man is charged with first-degree sexual assault.

A criminal complaint says the woman told police she was knocked out in the bedroom of Jones’ home on Nov. 11. And, when she regained consciousness, Jones was holding her while Bullock assaulted her. She says Jones then got his snake and used it to assault her. Bullock says the sexual contact was consensual.

The Eau Claire Leader-Telegram says the men are jailed on $30,000 cash.

The Smoking Gun Reports:

The next thing she remembered, the woman told a detective, was “Bullock…behind her sexually assaulting her” while Jones held her. Jones, she recalled, then said, “I’m going to get the snake.” Shortly afterwards, according to the complaint, the woman “felt something inside of her. She believed the snake may have bitten her because she felt a very sharp pain and then they said, ‘Pull it out.’”

Read The Whole Story

Transvestites Charged With Rape For Tricking Boy Into Having Sex With Them

DNA Clears Man Jailed For 31 Years For Rape And Robbery

NewsOne Staff — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 19:07:44 +0000

DALLAS (AP) — A 51-year-old Texas man who spent 30 years in prison for aggravated robbery will likely have his conviction set aside after DNA testing proved his innocence.

An exoneration hearing for Cornelius Dupree Jr. is scheduled for Tuesday in Dallas. If his conviction is overturned, Dupree would have spent more time wrongly imprisoned than any other DNA exoneree in Texas.

The district attorney’s office said Monday it supports Dupree’s innocence claim.

Dupree was charged in 1979 with raping and robbing a 26-year-old woman and sentenced in 1980 to 75 years in prison for aggravated robbery.

He was released on parole in July. DNA test results came back 10 days after his release, excluding him as the rapist.

Dupree’s case was turned down three times by the Court of Criminal Appeals.

Man Gets $18.5 Million From NYC After Being Cleared Of Rape

Men Accused Of Videotaping Rape Of 12-Year-Old They Met On The Internet

cganemccalla — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 16:05:03 +0000

New Jersey — Two men, Canpolat Cankurt and Leonardo Quintero are accused of raping a 12-year-old girl who they met on the internet and video recording it with a cell phone camera. North Jersey reports:

Quintero and Cankurt are accused of picking up the 12-year-old at her home in Paterson at 2 a.m. Friday, coercing her inside a Clifton apartment and taking her to the basement where they forced her to drink alcoholic beverages and raped her. Cankurt videotaped the sexual assaults, police said.

Police believe Quintero met the Paterson fourth-grader online through her instant messaging account. He chatted on the Iinternet with her for a few weeks and then called her Thursday through early Friday morning. He allegedly convinced her to leave home at 2 a.m. Friday without telling her family, drove to her home and picked her up.

Read The Whole Story

D.A.: No DNA Found On 7-Year-Old Gang-Raped In NJ

Share this post on Facebook! CLICK HERE:

Vindicated! Judge rules in Fantasia’s favor [from Hellobeautiful.com] Nicki Minaj calls Rihanna “The best fondler ever” [from Hellobeautiful.com] Trey Songz ex-bodyguard diss record “warning shots,” attempts to expose Trey [from TheUrbanDaily.com] Antoine Dodson’s “Chimney Intruder” song [from Theurbandaily.com]