Soulja Boy found liable for sexual assault of ex-assistant, ordered to pay $4 million US
Jury found the rapper liable for sexual assault and physical and emotional abuse
A jury on Thursday found that rapper Soulja Boy was liable for sexually assaulting and physically and emotionally abusing a former assistant, awarding the woman more than $4 million US in damages.
The decision from the Los Angeles County jurors came after a three-week trial in Santa Monica, Calif.
The 34-year-old Soulja Boy, whose legal name is DeAndre Cortez Way, was found liable for assault, sexual battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Jurors did not find him liable for false imprisonment and other allegations. They found the woman should get about $4 million US in compensatory damages and another $250,000 US in punitive damages.
"Today's verdict is just the beginning of justice for Soulja Boy's victims and other victims in the music industry," said the plaintiff's attorney, Neama Rahmani, in a statement.
Lead defence attorney Rickey Ivie said in his own statement: "We maintain that the evidence does not support the verdict. It is unfortunate that aspersions and misperceptions of a culture were allowed to influence the trial. Mr. Way fully intends to pursue his post-trial remedies and to fight for a just result in this case."
The woman was not identified by name in the lawsuit she filed in 2021, and The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused.
Abuse detailed in lawsuit
She said she began working for Soulja Boy in 2018, and he agreed to pay her $500 US a week for cleaning his house, cooking for him and doing other personal tasks. But she says she was never paid.
The two began a romantic relationship, and soon after he began abusing her, raping her, kicking her, punching her and threatening her with violence and death, her lawsuit alleges.
She believed she was in love with him, and he manipulated her into staying until 2020 despite repeated acts of violence, the lawsuit says.
She was beaten and raped again when she returned to retrieve her things months after leaving him, the lawsuit says.
The Chicago hip-hop artist is best known for his 2007 single "Crank That (Soulja Boy)," which went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and brought him a Grammy nomination for best rap song.
Why isn't he in jail? But then, I think all rappers should be in jail, if only to stop them from making that terrible noise.
French PM, former ministers face inquiry over handling of school sexual abuse
French Prime Minister François Bayrou will appear before a parliamentary commission on 14 May to answer questions about his role in a 1998 investigation into alleged child sexual abuse at a Catholic school when he was education minister. Other former holders of the post, as well as the incumbent Education Minister Élisabeth Borne, have also been called for questioning.
The inquiry is examining state oversight of private schools, including the Bétharram case – a scandal involving decades of alleged physical and sexual abuse at a Catholic boarding school in the southwest of France.
Bayrou has been summoned in his capacity as a former education minister, a post he held between 1993 and 1997.
He has repeatedly denied accusations that he had been informed of the abuse as early as the 1990s and failed to act, despite testimonies suggesting otherwise.
The commission, overseen by MPs Paul Vannier and Violette Spillebout, is calling other former education ministers Nicole Belloubet, Pap N’Diaye and Jean-Michel Blanquer, as well as the current holder o the post, Élisabeth Borne.
"There are no new elements... I have provided all the information on this case," Bayrou told reporters last month, describing the controversy as "artificial polemics".
His office confirmed to French news agency AFP that he will attend the hearing on 14 May.
Contradictions
After Thursday’s session, Vannier said he was under the impression that Bayrou lied because other testimonies "contradict point by point" the prime minister’s version of events.
One of these accounts came from a former gendarme who told the commission that a judge mentioned an "intervention" by Bayrou during the 1998 investigation.
Alain Hontangs, a former investigator, said under oath that the judge in charge of the case told him the presentation of the accused priest was being postponed.
"The judge was waiting for me outside his office door and told me: the presentation is delayed, the prosecutor general wants to see the file, there has been an intervention from François Bayrou," Hontangs said. He also said he was not the only one aware of the comment.
He previously shared the same account in February on a French television report aired on TF1.
At that time, Bayrou told the National Assembly he had "never" intervened "neither directly nor indirectly".
Judge Christian Mirande confirmed he had been asked to delay the procedure. "The prosecutor general asked me to postpone the presentation of Carricart, which was surprising," he said.
But, he added, "I have no recollection of mentioning an intervention by François Bayrou."
Case stalled
Father Pierre Silviet-Carricart, the school’s former director, was eventually charged and detained, then released under judicial supervision two weeks later.
A letter shown to the commission revealed that the prosecutor general reported the release to then-justice minister Élisabeth Guigou, noting the possibility of further investigation.
Mirande said he later identified two more potential victims, but the case stalled after Carricart was allowed to travel to Rome in 1999. Carricart died by suicide in 2000.
"It’s a case that leaves me with a lot of bitterness, many regrets," the judge said.
Mirande also contradicted Bayrou’s account of their contact during the investigation. "It wasn’t by chance – he came to my home to discuss it," Mirande told the commission.
He said Bayrou was concerned about his son, who attended the school, and found the allegations difficult to believe. "He couldn’t believe the reality of what was being said about Father Carricart, whom he seemed to know," Mirande added.
Bayrou had previously denied that such a meeting took place.
Borne said on Thursday that an investigation would be launched into the private Catholic school Le Beau Rameau, the current name of Notre-Dame de Bétharram. This follows the publication of the report of an inspection carried out in March.
Jailed child sex abuse offender Ghislaine Maxwell asks US Supreme Court to hear appeal against her conviction
Convicted child sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell is asking the US Supreme Court to hear an appeal against her conviction.
Maxwell's lawyers filed a 159-page Petition to the highest court in the country on Thursday asking the Supreme Court Justices to throw out her 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.
Maxwell, 63, remains behind bars in Tallahassee State Prison in Florida after being convicted in December 2021 on five counts of aiding convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein in his sexual abuse of young girls.The former close friend of Prince Andrew continues to vehemently deny all the charges against her and is asking the Supreme Court to throw out the conviction which could end up with her walking free.
Maxwell argues she should never have been charged as Epstein's 'co-conspirator' because of a 2007 plea deal Epstein made in Florida in which he agreed to plead guilty to two counts of child sex abuse and served 13-months in jail in exchange for any of his 'co-conspirators' avoiding prosecution.
A federal appeals judge rejected her appeal last year, saying the Southern District of New York - where Maxwell was tried - was not covered by the Florida deal.
Now Maxwell's lawyers are begging the Supreme Court to 'decide once and for all' whether the non-prosecution deal made in Florida should have applied to Maxwell.
In their lengthy petition, Maxwell's lawyers said: 'Despite the existence of a non-prosecution agreement promising in plain language that the United States would not prosecute any co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein, the United States in fact prosecuted Ghislaine Maxwell as a co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein.'
Convicted child sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell is asking the US Supreme Court to hear an appeal against her conviction (Pictured: Maxwell and Epstein at a party in New York in 2005)
Courtroom sketch of Maxwell as she stands at the podium to address Judge Alison Nathan during her sentencing in 2022
Maxwell (pictured here with Epstein) remains behind bars in Tallahassee State Prison in Florida
The lawyers argue that different legal jurisdictions have different rules when it comes to honoring a plea deal made in a different state.
The petition, written by Maxwell's high-powered lawyer David Markus, added: 'A defendant should be able to rely on a promise that the United States will not prosecute again, without being subject to a gotcha in some other jurisdiction that chooses to interpret that plain language promise in some other way.'
Four women testified at Maxwell's New York trial that they had been abused with one saying she had been trafficked across state lines.
They claimed Maxwell aided and abetted Epstein in his global sex trafficking ring by recruiting and grooming underage girls.
Epstein killed himself in 2019 while behind bars in New York after being arrested on child sex trafficking charges.
Maxwell's lawyers argue the plea deal he struck in Florida in 2007 'was entered into after extensive negotiation.
'The language was hotly contested and subject to much revision back and forth, including specifically on the relevant language of the co-conspirator clause.
Ghislaine Maxwell in a mugshot
One of many images unearthed in an FBI raid in 2021 of Maxwell and Epstein
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