Ex-Brazil football star Robinho’s 9-year prison term confirmed after ‘brutally humiliating’ gang rape victim & ‘defrauding cops’
10 Mar, 2021 13:37
Ex-Man City, Real Madrid, Milan and Brazil football star Robinho - Reuters
Ex-Brazil hotshot Robinho's nine-year prison sentence for his part in a gang rape while he was at AC Milan in 2015 has been upheld in court, where judges have said that the striker showed contempt for the victim and investigators.
The 37-year-old striker was found to have "brutally humiliated" and "belittled" an Albanian woman as part of an incident that began at a nightclub in Milan on her 23rd birthday in 2013.
Confirming the sentence, the Milan Court of Appeal rejected Robinho's attempt to overturn the ruling while revealing that he had also tried to "defraud the investigations by offering the investigators false and previously agreed facts."
In his evidence, Robinho had claimed that his sexual activities with the woman were "consensual", although intercepted calls between the former Real Madrid forward and his friends seemed to show him saying that the victim was "completely drunk" in an exchange that he said had been mistranslated.
In a more far-flung existence than his time in the Premier League and as a winner of the Italian Serie A and Spanish Liga, Robinho ended his career with spells in China, Turkey and his homeland after leaving Milan in 2015.
The veteran reportedly signed for Santos for around $70 a week last year, failing to make a single official appearance while his lawyers continued to protest his innocence over the charges in Italy.
"A girl approached me, we started to have contact with her consent and mine too... then I went home," he told UOL, admitting that he regretted cheating on his wife, Vivian, with whom he has two children.
"When she approached me, she wasn't drunk because she remembers my name, she remembers who I am. The person who drinks doesn't remember anything. She remembers."
An international warrant could be sent to Brazil, which does not extradite citizens, for Robinho's arrest, according to AS.
He is said to have 45 days in which to make a third and final appeal to the highest court of Italian justice.
Former US Olympian & coach John Zimmerman suspended for allegedly covering up intimate photo scandal involving minor
12 Mar, 2021 11:59
Former Olympic skater-turned-coach John Zimmerman has been suspended by a US safeguarding body for allegedly covering up a sex abuse scandal involving a 13-year-old female student he trained ahead of the 2018 Winter Olympics.
The allegations against the coach, who represented the US team at the 2002 Olympics, were based on a felony charge against French champion Morgan Cipres (5th story on link), who was accused of sending photos of his penis to the underage girl who was being coached by Zimmerman in Florida at the time.
The incident took place in 2017 when Cipres and his skating partner Vanessa James were getting ready for the 2018 Olympics.
Cipres was training at the same rink with the girl and allegedly sent her photos of his genitals via Instagram.
According to local reports, a coach at the Advent Health Center Ice Rink, Vinny Dispenza, had asked the girl and her teammate – another underage girl – to message Cipres asking him to send the photos in exchange for a pizza that Dispenza said he would pay for.
After the details of the controversial episode surfaced, a huge scandal erupted with Cipres facing a felony charge and his crime being reported as a third-degree felony, which carries up to five years in prison.
Zimmerman, who also coached Cipres, was reportedly aware of the incident and tried to keep the girl’s family from reporting the abuse because it could have negatively affected the skaters’ preparation for the Winter Games, in which they finished fifth.
Zimmerman and his wife, Silvia Fontana, reportedly told the girl’s parents that she was to blame and said the teen was a “pretty girl and men have their needs.”
The US Center for SafeSport handed a two-year suspension to Zimmerman, citing “abuse of process, emotional misconduct, failure to report,” as the reasons for the ban.
Fontana and Dispenza are both on probation for 6 months.
Editor of Germany’s Bild tabloid steps down amid
sexual misconduct investigation
13 Mar, 2021 21:18
Julian Reichelt, seen alongside Bild's logo © Reuters / Stefanie Loos
Julian Reichelt, editor-in-chief of German tabloid Bild, has stepped down from his job as the paper’s publisher investigates allegations of sexual misconduct against him. Meanwhile, Bild is gearing up for lawsuits.
Bild’s publisher, Axel Springer, announced on Saturday that Reichelt would be stepping down as editor-in-chief to allow an investigation into his conduct to proceed unhindered. Reichelt will resume editing duties once the allegations against him “have been clarified,” the statement added.
Reichelt is accused of "repeated misconduct against women," Der Spiegel revealed last Monday. Around “half a dozen” female Bild employees, who have remained anonymous, have reported incidents of misconduct, with some claiming that Reichelt would abuse his position of power to “F**k, promote, fire” women under him. Reichelt denies the accusations.
Bild is currently dealing with scandal on several fronts. As well as the accusations against Reichelt, the tabloid faces a lawsuit from RT’s German-language service, after it published an article baselessly accusing the news outlet of “spying” for the Kremlin on Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny while he received treatment at a Berlin hospital last year.
Even before Reichelt’s alleged wrongdoing and his newspaper’s anti-RT outbursts, Bild was the newspaper that racked up the biggest number of complaints with the German Press Council last year.
Reichelt seems quite young to be editor-in-chief of a significant newspaper, even a tabloid. Perhaps someone more mature would make better decisions.
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