#MeToo setback: French court finds another assault accuser guilty of defamation
FILE PHOTO: A protester displays messages in support of the #MeToo movement at a rally in Paris, 2017
© AFP / Bertrand Guay
French author Ariane Fornia has been found guilty of defamation, after a former government minister challenged her claim of sexual assault. The verdict is another blow for the #MeToo movement in France.
A Paris court ordered Fornia, the daughter of former minister Eric Besson, to pay a symbolic one euro in damages and 3,000 euros in legal fees to Pierre Joxe, a former socialist minister who Fornia defamed with an allegation of sexual assault.
In 2017, Fornia accused Joxe – now 85 – of sexually assaulting her during an opera performance in Paris seven years earlier. She did not make an official complaint, but wrote about the encounter in a blog post, describing how “He slides his hand inside my thigh, goes up to my crotch...I utter a cry of muffled indignation. Ten minutes later, he starts again.”
Le Figaro✔
@Le_Figaro
Poursuivie en diffamation par Pierre Joxe, Ariane Fornia fixée sur son sort ce mercredi #Société http://bit.ly/2sIpMBc
Poursuivie en diffamation par Pierre Joxe, Ariane Fornia fixée sur son sort ce mercredi
L’écrivain avait publié un billet de blog dans lequel elle racontait avoir été victime d’une agression sexuelle lors d’une soirée à l’Opéra. Le nom de l’ancien ministre avait rapidement émergé.
lefigaro.fr
Fornia’s accusation made national news, coming at the height of the MeToo movement. The same year, the New York Times reported that more than a dozen women accused film mogul Harvey Weinstein of assault, harassment and rape, and the hashtag #MeToo became a rallying call for a national outcry against similar stories of male misbehaviour, from the benign to the illegal and morally repugnant.
Joxe has been accused of sexual impropriety by more than one woman, but outright denies all the charges. He mounted the case against Fornia in 2018, after the author refused to retract her accusation and issue him an apology.
The court’s decision is the latest blow for the MeToo movement in France, where it is more commonly referred to as the ‘#BalanceTonPorc’ or ‘Rat on your Pig’ campaign. The campaign’s French originator, Sandra Muller, was found guilty of defamation in September, when a court ordered her to pay €15,000 euros in damages and another €5,000 in legal fees to a television executive she claimed sexually harassed her at a cocktail party in 2012.
The right to flirt
The executive, Eric Brion, admitted that he had come on to Muller at the party, but outright denied the charge of harassment and said he backed off when he realized Muller was uninterested in his advances. His lawyers told the court that he had simply exercised “his right to flirt.”
The Muller case threw the MeToo campaign into an unflattering spotlight in France. In an open letter published in the newspaper Le Monde, a hundred prominent French women, including actress Catherine Deneuve, called its supporters “puritans,” and argued that prosecuting men for minor indiscretions robs them of their “indispensable freedom” to play the game of seduction.
The movement has not been criticized in the US as extensively as it has in France. As Deneuve’s letter made front-page news in France, actress and Weinstein accuser Asia Argento claimed that its authors had been “lobotomized” by their “interiorized misogyny.”
Later that year in Washington, multiple unfounded accounts of sexual assault would be used by politicians, pundits and celebrities in an attempt to derail the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
An attempt that failed, as you know. There has to be a medium ground, a line between 'flirting' and sexual assault. Running your hand up the leg of a girl or woman is not flirting. The 'Game of Seduction' is not played by physical assault, it is played with the mind and emotions, by two equals, without any form of coercion. Would you agree with that? Can you refine it further?
Jessica Simpson Opens Up About Childhood
Sexual Abuse In New Book
By Morgan BrinleeRomper
In an exert from her forthcoming memoir that was shared with People magazine, singer Jessica Simpson has revealed that childhood sexual abuse led her to self-medicate with alcohol and pills as an adult. Five years after being asked to write a motivational book on how to live your best life, Simpson is ready for her book to hit shelves. But Open Book isn't the how-to Simpson was initially asked to write. Rather, it's an emotional tell-all that digs deep into past traumas and how she's worked to overcome their longstanding impact.
"I was killing myself with all the drinking and pills," Simpson wrote of how she self-medicated for the emotional pain of allegedly being sexually abused as a child. As People reported, Simpson was abused at the age of 6 while sharing a bed with the daughter of a family friend. "It would start with tickling my back and then go into things that were extremely uncomfortable," Simpson wrote. "I wanted to tell my parents. I was the victim but somehow I felt in the wrong."
Simpson said it took her six years to finally open up to her parents. In the excerpt shared with People, she said her announcement caused her mother to slap her dad's arm and yell, "I told you something was happening." Her dad, however, had a different reaction. "Dad kept his eye on the road and said nothing," People reported Simpson wrote. "We never stayed at my parents’ friends house again but we also didn’t talk about what I had said."
Jessica Simpson✔
@JessicaSimpson
Thank you @people for helping me share my story. There is so much beauty on the other side of fear and I hope my truth can help. I can’t wait to share #OpenBook with you. 💚
The singer and fashion designer said she moved to numb away the trauma of that abuse as well as the stress, anxiety, and pressures that came along with her growing career in music and film. After breaking into the music scene at the age of 19, Simpson quickly became known as "America's Sweetheart" thanks to chart-topping hits, roles in That 70s Show, The Dukes of Hazzard, Employee of the Month, and Blonde Ambition, as well as her own reality TV show. But behind the scenes, Simpson said she struggled with alcohol and pills until she hit rock bottom in November of 2017.
It was then that the mother-of-three stopped drinking and started therapy. "Giving up the alcohol was easy," People reported Simpson wrote of her sobriety. "I was mad at that bottle. At how it allowed me to stay complacent and numb." Harper Collins, the publisher behind Open Book, explained that Simpson used journals she'd kept since age 15 to guide her in writing the book.
On Wednesday, Simpson thanked People magazine over Twitter for helping her share her story, adding that "there is so much beauty on the other side of fear" and that she hoped her truth could help others.
In Open Book, Simpson claimed that admitting she needed help led her to find her life calling once again. "I found direction and that was to walk straight ahead with no fear," she wrote. "Honesty is hard but it's the most rewarding thing we have."
Open Book is expected to hit shelves on Feb. 4.
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Former X Factor contestant Danny Tetley jailed for 9 years over child sex offences
BY RIANNE HOUGHTONDigital Spy
Former X Factor semi-finalist Danny Tetley has been sentenced to nine years in prison after being found guilty of child sexual exploitation.
The singer and former Benidorm star was sentenced at Bradford Crown Court today (January 24), where the judge also made Tetley the subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for 20 years.
Tetley was described by the judge as a "highly predatory and manipulative individual" (via The Mirror).
News of the former X Factor contestant's arrest first broke in August last year, but the 39-year-old denied the allegations against him. "Someone is trying to set me up," he insisted.
"This kind of thing has gone on for ages because people don't like to see me do well," Tetley told reporters at the time. "I've never handled the fame very well. I haven't worked this hard just for me to be slaughtered."
"We have met the enemy, sir, and he is us" - Pogo.
Readers who are affected by the issues raised in this story are encouraged to contact the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000 (www.nspcc.org.uk). Readers in the US are encouraged to contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline on (1-800-422-4453) or the American SPCC (www.americanspcc.org).
Australian Swim Coach Paul Frost Now Facing More Than 100 Child Sex Abuse Charges
Jared Anderson, SwimSwamThe list of charges against Australian swim coach and former MasterChef contestant Paul Frost continue to grow. The son of Australian coaching legend Doug Frost now faces more than 100 charges, according to News.com.au.
Since then, the allegations have exploded in number. Within about a week, prosecutors had nine new alleged victims and 47 more charges against Paul Frost. The charges ranged from grooming to indecent assault to aggravated sexual assault. Prosecutors alleged that Paul Frost had abused boys between the ages of 8 and 16.
The assaults allegedly happened while Paul Frost was working at the Doug Frost Swim School in Sydney. The story has been especially significant in Australia due to that family connection – Doug Frost was famous for training Australian swim star Ian Thorpe. Both father and son have been relative celebrities in the country. Paul Frost was a contestant on the television show MasterChef, Australian media report.
Paul Frost spent a week in jail after his arrest, but has been released on bail since then. Per News.com.au, prosecutors asked for eight weeks to produce a charge certificate, citing the high number of charges against the younger Frost. His next court date is March 11.
Mistrial declared in Albany, NY, child sex case
against DJ Iroc
Paul Nelson, Times UnionALBANY — A judge declared a mistrial Tuesday afternoon when jurors in the case of a well-known radio DJ accused of child sex abuse failed to reach a unanimous verdict, the Albany County District Attorney’s Office said.
The jury had been deliberating since Friday afternoon.
Angelo, 51, is accused of preying sexually upon a child and was represented by former Rensselaer County District Attorney Joel Abelove.
"The District Attorney's Office failed to convince the jury that my client was guilty and they were unable to reach a verdict so we have to have another trial," Abelove said.
The case was handled by Albany County Assistant District Attorney Caroline Murray.
Angelo, who was on the air at radio station JAMZ 96.3, is charged with predatory sexual assault of a child (3rd story on link) under the age of 13, the most serious sex crime charge on the books in New York.
As a result, the defendant, who is out on bail, could face a maximum sentence of life in prison, if convicted.
Colonie police have said they received a tip in July 2018 that Angelo had allegedly been abusing a victim in 2006 and a 12-year-old girl in 2009.
A new trial date has been set for March 9.
Angelo also faces child sex abuse crimes in Rensselaer County, where he is accused of first-degree course of sexual conduct, a felony, involving an 8-year-old child between June 1 and Aug. 31, 2005, in a Seventh Avenue residence in North Troy.
The trial in Rensselaer County is tentatively set to get underway with jury selection on Feb. 25.
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