SEXUAL ASSAULT – When The Abuser Goes To Work…

Another Nail In The Coffin Of England’s Upper Class?

It’s hard to find a guy with less class than Prince Andrew, who allegedly raped a 17-year old American girl several times in 2001 while he was in his 40s.

When the girl, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, now 38, made public accusations against Andrew in 2015, he denied them. He claimed he couldn’t remember even meeting her, though a photo showed him with his arm around her bare midriff.

After Giuffre filed a civil lawsuit, Andrew, now 61, claimed he could not be held liable because pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who allegedly trafficked Giuffre to Andrew, had entered a settlement with Giuffre in 2009. Although he wasn’t a party to the settlement, Andrew argued that it absolved “other potential defendants” like him. The judge disagreed and set a civil trial date.

Meanwhile, the royals began sweating that Andrew’s difficulties would cast a shadow on the upcoming Platinum Jubilee commemorating his mother, Queen Elizabeth’s, 70 years on the throne in June.

Reuters announced Tuesday that Andrew and Giuffre have reached a settlement in principle. The amount of the settlement was not disclosed but the New York Post reports it was $12 million. The settlement must be approved by the court.

It remains to be seen where the money will come from to pay the settlement, and whether public funds will be used.

U.S. Bureau of Prisons Jumps The Gun On Sending Males Who ‘Identify’ as Women To Women’s Prisons

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) seems to have jumped the gun on an anticipated executive order by Pres. Joe Biden when it instituted a major change in U.S. prison policy.

The BOP, a division of the U.S. Dept. of Justice, issued a notice on Jan. 13 stating it will henceforth assign “transgender or intersex” inmates to women’s prisons to “ensure the inmate’s health and safety.”

That very provision was included in a draft of an executive order on police reform crafted for Pres. Joe Biden that has not yet been signed because, according to the New York Times, it has precipitated a “near breakdown” between the White House and law enforcement authorities.

The NYT reported Thursday that a copy of the proposed order was obtained on Jan. 5 by a conservative web site, The Federalist.

The NYT fails to even mention that The Federalist article decried a provision in the draft order enabling the BOP to assign male prisoners who self-identify as women to facilities in accordance with their gender identity.

Instead, the Times focuses on a provision of the draft order that allows police to use deadly force only “as a last resort when there is no reasonable alternative, in other words only when necessary to prevent imminent and serious bodily injury or death.”

Designate

The draft order, dated December 2021, requires “the U.S. attorney general to ‘within 30 days of the date of this order, begin the process of identifying any necessary changes to the [Bureau of Prisons] Transgender Offender Manual … to enable BOP to designate individuals to facilities in accordance with their gender identity.’

The BOP didn’t wait for Biden to sign the executive order and on Jan. 13 issued a revised Transgender Offender Manual.

The Father Of Sexual Harassment In The Workplace?

You could look at Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy Magazine, as a heroic civil rights crusader.

Or you could get real. He was marketing low-grade porn magazine that exploited not very bright women for money.

More to the point is that Hugh Hefner, who died in 2017, was the father of sexual harassment in the workplace, which continues to be a problem today for millions of workers.

Hefner didn’t invent sexual harassment but he made it appealing and sexy to a generation of men at work. As a result, a generation of young women were forced to deal with the male delusion that female workers want sexual attention on the job. Especially if its your boss!

Sexual Assault Victims On Trial (Yet Again) In Maxwell Case

There isn’t much that Ghislaine Maxwell’s attorney can do in Maxwell’s child sex-trafficking trial except to put her accusers on trial.

Maxwell’s attorney Bobby C. Sternheim received permission from U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan to call as an expert witness in Maxwell’s trial Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist and “false memory” expert. Technically, Judge Nathan denied the government’s motion to block Loftus’ testimony.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Loftus has been an expert witness in more than 300 trials involving sexual misconduct and murder, including those of disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, serial killer Ted Bundy and alleged pedophile Michael Jackson. She typically testifies that victims’ memories are unreliable and can be affected by the media or crass commercial concerns. She is a distinguished professor of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irving.

Loftus may be Maxwell’s only hope of creating a reasonable doubt in the minds of jurors and securing either a mistrial or acquittal.

A parade of women are expected to say that Maxwell, now 59, befriended them when they were young girls (some as young as 14), took them shopping and made them feel special, and groomed them for sexual assault by financier and convicted child molester Jeffrey Epstein.

Outrage About China’s Treatment of Peng Shuai

There is more than a little bit of hypocrisy with respect to the outrage in the U.S. about China’s treatment of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai’s following her sexual assault complaint against Chinese ex premier Zhang Gaoli.

Things are not going so great in the United States for victims of sexual assault.

MONEY AND JUSTICE

I had to twice check the date on a story published this week by The New York Times because it seemed like a relic from the 1970s.

Christopher Belter, then 16 and a student at an elite private boys school, pleaded guilty to the sexually attacking four teens (including the rape of at least one victim). He faced up to eight years in prison but instead was sentenced to probation.

County Court Judge Matthew J. Murphy III of Niagara, N.Y., claims he “prayed over” the appropriate sentence in the case and concluded that “incarceration or partial incarceration isn’t appropriate” for Belter.

The Buffalo News reported that Peter M. Wydysh, an assistant district attorney, did not make a sentencing recommendation to the court. This is unusual, especially since Belter pled guilty to four counts of sexual attacks on teenage girls.

Is it purely coincidental that Belter comes from an extremely wealthy family?