K-pop; Benzema; Bowen; Bikram; Polanski; Gauguin Lead The Perverted Lives of the Rich and Famous - Episode XXXIV

Two K-pop stars sentenced to 6 and 5 years
respectively in prison for rape

Thomson Reuters ·

Singer Jung Joon-young 

A South Korean court sentenced a K-pop musician to six years in prison on Friday for raping a woman and distributing a video capturing the act, in a case that drew attention to the darker side of the country's lucrative entertainment industry.

Jung Joon-young, 30, was arrested in March. Choi Jong-hoon, 30, a former member of South Korean boy band FT Island, was also sentenced to five years in prison for the rape of the woman.

Both were members of online chat groups that shared secret sex tapes and made jokes about drugging and raping women, the Seoul Central District Court said.

Jung's conviction also includes the illegal distribution of other videos he took secretly while having sex with women. The identities of the victims were suppressed to protect their privacy.

The court also sentenced each man to 80 hours in "sexual violence treatment" education.

"The defendants are well-known celebrities and friends, but the chat they've had showed that they simply considered women as objects of sexual pleasure, and committed crimes that were extremely serious," Judge Kang Seong-soo said as he handed down the verdict.

"Strict punishment is inevitable as the damage inflicted has not properly been recovered and the victims demand harsh penalties."

Choi Jong-hoon

Jung admitted distributing the video and others he took, though he argued the sex was in all cases consensual.

Choi denied raping the woman. He had argued that he did not remember having sex with her, and that if he had, it was likely consensual.

Lawyers for Jung and Choi could not be reached for comment.

Their case was one of several scandals involving sex crimes and other illegal activity that revealed a dark side of an industry at the centre of the global K-pop craze.

Lee Seung-hyun, a former member of K-pop group Big Bang and known by the stage name Seungri, is also on trial over accusations he paid for prostitutes for foreign businessmen to drum up investment in his business. 

Evangelist Acton Bowen pleads guilty to 28 charges

in sex abuse case in Alabama

Gadsden Times
By Donna Thornton

Acton Bowen on Monday pleaded guilty to 28 charges related to sexual abuse of six boys between the ages of 12 and 16 — most contacted through his ministry to young people.

The former youth evangelist entered the plea without agreement, meaning he could face maximum sentences, to be served consecutively, on all 28 charges.

Defense attorney John Floyd said Bowen indicated he was entering the plea because he did not want to put anyone through anything further in the case.

“It’s my client’s desire to acknowledge his responsibility,” Floyd told the judge.

Potential jurors reported for the trial even as preparations were being made for the plea before Judge Debra H. Jones, specially appointed to hear the case.

Etowah County District Attorney Jody Willoughby read each of the charges in the indictments returned against Bowen, and Deputy District Attorney Carol Griffith gave a summary of what the prosecution expected evidence to be regarding the charge, before the judge accepted the pleas.

“Guilty,” Bowen responded, 28 times as Jones asked him his plea on the charges, sometimes speaking so softly he couldn’t be heard beyond the bar.

Sentencing will be set for Bowen; the charges range from second-degree sexual abuse, a misdemeanor with a maximum sentence of 365 days in jail and a maximum $6,000 fine, to Class A felony charges with a sentencing range of 10 to 99 years or life in prison, with a maximum fine of $60,000, and other offenses with sentence ranges in between.

Charges against Bowen in Etowah County

‒ Second-degree sodomy: Sentence range of 2 to 20 years, maximum fine $30,000; seven counts

‒ Enticing a child for a sex act: Sentence range of 1 year and 1 day to 10 years, maximum fine of $15,000; seven counts

‒ Traveling to meet a child for a sex act: Sentence range of 10 to 99 years or life in prison; four counts

‒ Facilitating the travel of a child for a sex act: Sentence range of 10 to 99 years or life in prison; four counts

‒ Second-degree sexual abuse of a child between the ages of 12 and 16: Sentence range of up to 365 days in jail, maximum fine of $6,000; six counts

Bowen pleaded guilty to multiple counts of each offense charged.

Griffith told Jones the first case involved a 12-year-old boy who met Bowen during his time as youth minister at what then was CrossPoint Community Church. Bowen asked the boy to spend nights at his home and would show him pornographic movies or videos on his phone, she said, and encourage him to masturbate. In time, Griffith said, Bowen asked the boy to touch him sexually, and to engage in oral sex.

The offenses continued until the boy was about 15. Griffith said the incidents occurred at Bowen’s first home in Southside, at a home in Gadsden and on the interstate while he was allowing the victim to drive.

“There were multiple acts,” Griffith said.

The second case involved a 13-year-old boy whom Bowen invited to an out-of-town conference, Griffith said. The boy later spent the night with Bowen, who asked him to sleep in the same bed, to cuddle with him and touched the boy sexually while he thought the victim was asleep. Offenses also involved oral sex, and occurred in Etowah County and when Bowen took the boy with him on trips in the U.S. and elsewhere.

The third victim met Bowen when he spoke at the boy’s South Alabama school, she said. Bowen later contacted the boy through Facebook, and continued to contact him through Messenger and by text. Griffith said Bowen traveled to South Alabama and befriended the boy’s entire family. He took the boy with him to his home in Etowah County and on out-of-state trips.

Offenses included touching of genitals, oral and anal sex, Griffith said, occurring when the victim was 14.

After Bowen was arrested in Birmingham, Griffith told the judge, he contacted the victim and asked him about running away to Ecuador with him.

A 15-year-old victim became friends with Bowen, who took him out of state, and spent time with him in Etowah County. Offenses began with touching of private parts, and involved oral and anal sex.

“He said the defendant would give him alcohol and encourage him to drink so he could take advantage of him,” Griffith told the judge.

Bowen met two of the victims while he was working with their youth group at Whorton Bend Baptist Church. Griffith said Bowen checked the first of those victims, a 15-year-old, out of school, took him to lunch and back to his home in Southside.

The victim said he was tired and was going to take a nap, Griffith said, then Bowen came into the room and said he was going to take a nap, too, lying down with the victim, and eventually touching him in a sexual manner.

The victim told him to stop, Griffith said, and Bowen told the boy he’d taken some medication and didn’t know what he was doing.

Bowen later contacted the boy and told him he’d give him ”$200 for 10 minutes” — that he wouldn’t have to do anything but just lay there, she said.

The other victim was checked out of school, taken to lunch, shopping, to Bowen’s house and out on his boat. Griffith said the boy spent time with Bowen while he was 14 and 15 years old.

He told prosecutors Bowen asked him how much money it would take for the boy to allow him to perform oral sex, Griffith related. The victim told Bowen he just didn’t think he could do it.

Later, via Snapchat, Bowen offered the boy $400 to $500, she said.

Prior to accepting Bowen’s guilty pleas, Jones asked if he understood that entering a guilty plea without an agreement for sentencing meant that he could receive maximum sentences on each of the charges, to be served consecutively.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied.

Floyd told the judge he reserved the right to appeal on the traveling and facilitating charges, which he’s argued are unconstitutional.

In a previous hearing, Floyd said those charges would impose harsher sentences on Bowen than the actual charges of sexual abuse or sodomy.

Jones ruled in that hearing, finding the laws constitutional, but noting the potential for appeal on those issues — and those issues alone.

Real Madrid star Benzema could face criminal trial over ‘sextape blackmail’ case

© AFLO / D.Nakashima

The French Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Karim Benzema to bury allegations dating back to 2015 regarding the former France international's alleged involvement in a plot to blackmail then-teammate Matthieu Valbuena.

The Real Madrid striker may now face a criminal trial after the dismissal of his appeal aimed at undermining the legality of a blackmail investigation which alleges that Benzema was part of a plot to blackmail Valbuena in relation to a so-called 'sex tape'.

The court determined that the methods of investigation used by authorities were within the legal framework of the law, contradicting assertions made by Benzema's legal team.

The case stems from a June 2015 complaint from Valbuena, who was a French national teammate of Benzema, claiming that he was the victim of a blackmail plot after receiving a telephone call from a person who claimed to have information regarding a sex tape that the footballer appeared in.

Investigators claim that Benzema acted as a middle-man between Valbuena and his blackmailers, one of whom is allegedly a childhood friend.

However, Benzema's legal team had suggested that police used underhanded tactics by pretending to be a friend of Valbuena's in a telephone conversation with one of the alleged criminals.

Valbuena now plays his football in Greece. © Global Look Press via ZUMA Press

Benzema was indicted for "complicity in attempted blackmail" but vigorously denies any such allegations but the court ruled on Monday that there had been no "breach of fairness", contradicting a court opinion from 2017.

Due to no further appeal being allowed by law, the case will now move to the office of the investigating judge in Versailles to determine if the case will go to trial.

"Obviously, it's a disappointment," Benzema's legal representatives said to AFP.

"There is something schizophrenic in the fact that the Supreme Court is saying the opposite of what it said two years ago. But Karim Benzema has never feared having to face his judges and explaining why he has nothing to do with the accusation if it goes to trial."

"This plenary decision goes far beyond this particular sextape affair," Frederic Thiriez said. "It allows the police, in the interest of victims, to use their investigative techniques to search for and arrest alleged perpetrators of crimes."

Benzema hasn't played for the French national side since the allegations became public and has recently petitioned French football federation president Noel Le Graet to allow him to play for another country.

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Doc raises sexual misconduct allegations
against Bikram Yoga founder

..

Spokesperson tells CBC News Choudhury wants to 'move on';
filmmaker says he should 'face the music'

Zulekha Nathoo · CBC News

The Netflix documentary, Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator, examines the rise and downfall of Bikram Choudhury, who introduced hot yoga to North America and fled the U.S. after being accused of assaulting many female students. (TIFF)

The Netflix documentary, Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator, is following the lead of several recent films in its attempt to spark calls to action and bring attention to a high-profile figure accused of sexual misconduct.

"If there's a way for the law to catch up with Bikram, I think that's the aim of this," Australian filmmaker Eva Orner told CBC News during a sit-down interview in Toronto. "I mean, he should come back to America, and he should face the music."

Bikram Choudhury, who founded an empire based on the practice of hot yoga, is currently in Mexico and continues to offer training sessions and travel around the world, according to his U.K. representative. The 90-minute proprietary Bikram yoga routine consists of 26 poses performed in a room with a temperature of about 40 degrees Celsius.

The documentary chronicles the rise of hot yoga — which many in the film argue has helped cure both physical and mental ailments — in Los Angeles in the 1970s. Choudhury created a string of studios and franchises, keeping tight control of his methods. He was known for sporting a black Speedo in class and a Rolex watch. Photos show he was embraced by celebrities, including Shirley MacLaine, Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson.

"I felt so instantly connected to this person," former yoga teacher Sarah Baughn, who says she once suffered from scoliosis, said in the film.

"I wanted to be a teacher so badly and I wanted to be a good teacher so badly ... We grew to understand that the only way that you could be a good teacher was through him."

Teacher training can cost thousands of dollars but is the only way to become certified in the specialized routine. The certification has to be renewed every three years.

Accusations of sexual misconduct

"I came back over and over again [to his training] expecting different results," Baughn says in the film. "And I know that's the definition of an idiot." 

Baughn is one of several women to come forward in the film and accuse Choudhury of sexual misconduct. She eventually settled out of court.

Another woman interviewed in the film, Larissa Anderson, has accused Choudhury of rape. He denies all allegations against him. 

Many studios around the world, including this one in Los Angeles, still hold the Bikram name despite Chaudhury's guilt in civil court. (Kim Brunhuber/CBC)

Through striking class footage (Orner didn't disclose how she obtained them), archives, interviews and court documents, the film depicts Choudhury as a megalomaniac who preyed on women while conducting his famous teacher training. It also explores the magnetism that drew people in.

Fled the U.S. after lawsuit

There is much more to this story at CBC

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Woman claims violent rape by Polanski;

he blames Weinstein

Roman Polanski claims media trying to make him a ‘monster’ after new rape allegation & blames… Harvey Weinstein

© Reuters / Charles Platiau

Roman Polanski has accused none other than disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein of being behind a media campaign to tarnish his reputation and lashed out at the press for seizing on rape allegations without evidence.

In an interview with Paris Match magazine published this week, Polanski said Weinstein had tried to brand him a “child rapist” in order to prevent him from winning an Oscar for his 2003 film, ‘The Pianist’.

He claimed Weinstein’s press agent was the first person to call him that, in what he believes was an effort to ensure his own film, ‘Chicago’, was the big winner at the Oscars that year.

Polanski’s comments come in light of new allegations which he has dismissed as “absurd,” complaining that the media are “trying to make me into a monster” again. The film director fled the US in 1978 after admitting statutory rape of a 13-year-old.

French photographer Valentine Monnier accused Polanski last month of raping her in an “extremely violent” way in 1975, which included beating her into submission.

“Clearly accusing me of rape isn't sensational enough any more, you have to add another layer. I do not hit women,” Polanski told the French magazine. He said he was speaking out in the interest of his wife and children who are “suffering enormously” and being attacked on social media.

“I am used to the lies, my skin has thickened. But for my children and for Emmanuelle (his wife) it's appalling,” he said.

The director accused the media of treating him with “incredible violence” and seizing on “every new false accusation, no matter how absurd.”

Polanski has been defended by many in the French film industry, particularly in the era of the #MeToo movement, during which accusations of sexual misconduct and rape are instantly amplified by the media before any proof or evidence has been established.

Weinstein, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women, reached a $25 million settlement agreement with dozens of his accusers in a deal that would not require him to admit wrongdoing, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

Walking Dead actress who suffered years of abuse at children's homes says care system 'still not fit for purpose'

'If we continue to privatise children's homes or any aspect of care of other people and we monetise it, it becomes a very dangerous game,' says Samantha Morton, who grew up in Nottinghamshire care homes

May Bulman The Independent

A Bafta-winning actress who suffered years of abuse at a children’s home in Nottingham has said the care system is “still not fit for purpose” despite the publication of a major inquiry into historical abuse in the city.

Samantha Morton, who has starred in a number of films and TV shows such as The Walking Dead and Minority Report, told the BBC that despite apologies from several public bodies, she did not feel justice had been done.

The 42-year-old previously revealed that she was a victim of abuse while growing up in Nottinghamshire care homes during the 1980s, an experience she described as being “equivalent to hell”.

In July, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) found hundreds of children were abused by predatory foster carers and residential home staff in the city and county over the past five decades due to repeated failures to learn from mistakes.

Some 350 people alleged they were abused while in residential or foster care in the county from the 1960s onwards, but the report said the true number of victims was “likely to be considerably higher”.

Morton said many of her friends who had also suffered abuse at the Nottinghamshire care homes had since lost their lives to drug overdoses, suicide and mental health issues.

She added: ”The system still isn't fit for purpose. If we continue to privatise children's homes or any aspect of care of other people and we monetise it, it becomes a very dangerous game.“

On first speaking out about the abuse she suffered to the Guardian in 2014, Morton, who was put into care as a baby, said she had told social workers about “all sorts of sexual abuse that happened to me from a very, very young age”, but that no action had ever been taken. 

She continued: “There was no support, no offer of counselling, no wanting to delve deeper ... Maybe they just assumed I had been abused already, or was being, anyway.” 

Nottinghamshire County Council accepted the findings of the July report and said it had also taken “a number of actions to ensure survivors of non-recent abuse received the right support”.

Nottinghamshire Police meanwhile said it had learned “many lessons over the years and during the course of the inquiry”, improving how it responded to reports of abuse and supported those affected.

We can always hope.

Paul Gauguin - Artist, Pederast, Complex Man

Wikipedia

Tahiti

Gauguin wrote a travelogue (first published 1901) titled Noa Noa [ca], originally conceived as commentary on his paintings and describing his experiences in Tahiti. Modern critics have suggested that the contents of the book were in part fantasized and plagiarized. 

Bord de Mer II

In it he revealed that he had at this time taken a thirteen-year-old girl as native wife or vahine (the Tahitian word for "woman"), a marriage contracted in the course of a single afternoon. This was Teha'amana, called Tehura in the travelogue, who was pregnant by him by the end of summer 1892. 

Teha'amana was the subject of several of Gauguin's paintings, including Merahi metua no Tehamana and the celebrated Spirit of the Dead Watching, as well as a notable woodcarving Tehura now in the Musée d'Orsay. By the end of July 1893, Gauguin had decided to leave Tahiti and he would never see Teha'amana or her child again even after returning to the island several years later.

France

In August 1893, Gauguin returned to France, where he affected an exotic persona, dressing in Polynesian costume, and conducted a public affair with a young woman still in her teens, "half Indian, half Malayan", known as Annah the Javanese [ca].

In June 1895, Eugene Carriere arranged a cheap passage back to Tahiti, and Gauguin never saw Europe again.

Tahiti Again

Gauguin's female partner this time was Pahura (Pau'ura) a Tai, the daughter of neighbours in Punaauia and aged fourteen and a half when he took her in. She gave him two children, of which a daughter died in infancy. The other, a boy, she raised herself. His descendants still inhabited Tahiti at the time of Mathews' biography.

Marquesas Islands

Reconstruction of Marquesas house

Still in the South Pacific but even more primitive than Tahiti and had been devastated by white man's diseases leaving only a fragment of the pre-white man population.

Here he became good friends with a Protestant pastor and regularly attended mass at the Catholic Church. He built himself a very sturdy two-story house in the middle of the principal town. 

The walls were decorated with, amongst other things, his prized collection of forty-five pornographic photographs he had purchased in Port Said on his way out from France. The house drew appreciative crowds in the evenings from the natives, who came to stare at the pictures and party half the night away.

Needless to say, all this did not endear Gauguin to the bishop, still less when Gauguin erected two sculptures he placed at the foot of his steps lampooning the bishop and a servant reputed to be the bishop's mistress.

Father Lechery

Perhaps due to Gauguin's relentless criticism, State funding for the missionary schools had ceased as a result of the 1901 Associations Bill promulgated throughout the French empire. The schools continued with difficulty as private institutions, but these difficulties were compounded when Gauguin established that attendance at any given school was only compulsory within a catchment area of some two and a half miles radius. This led to numerous teenage daughters being withdrawn from the schools (Gauguin called this process "rescuing"). He took as vahine one such girl, Vaeoho (also called Marie-Rose), the fourteen-year-old daughter of a native couple who lived in an adjoining valley six miles distant. 

This can scarcely have been a pleasant task for her as Gauguin's sores were by then extremely noxious and required daily dressing. Nevertheless, she lived willingly with him and the following year gave birth to a healthy daughter whose descendants continue to live on the island.

It is widely believed that Gauguin had syphilis and after breaking his ankle in a drunken brawl developed massive sores on his leg. He died in 1903 at the age of 54. His paintings have recently sold in the tens of millions of dollars; his carvings also are quite valuable.

While Gauguin had a penchant for teenage Asian or Polynesian girls, he was a relentless campaigner for the rights of Polynesians who were badly treated and exploited by Europeans. He criticized the Bishop mercilessly, for having a mistress, which was completely against his vows of celibacy, while he didn't see the hypocrisy of his own exploitation of young Polynesian girls.

Lest there was any doubt that sexual abuse by Catholic priests began long before the middle of the 20th century, Gauguin makes it clear that it was happening at the beginning of that century. It is quite possible that girls were being sexually abused at the school which may have caused Gauguin to fight to reduce their numbers and then called them rescued.

No one is good; no one is evil; everyone is both, in the same way and in different ways. …

It is so small a thing, the life of a man, and yet there is time to do great things, fragments of the common task.

..

— Paul Gauguin, Intimate Journals, 1903

Marquesas Islands - Island marked French Polynesia is Tahiti