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Ex-Team USA gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar stabbed
multiple times in prison
By Lee Brown, NYPost
July 10, 2023 8:42am Updated
Child molester Larry Nassar was stabbed multiple times in the federal prison where he is serving hundreds of years for sexually assaulting gymnasts, including gold medal-winning Olympians.
Nassar, 59, was stabbed twice in the neck, twice in the back and six times in the chest in the Sunday afternoon attack in the Federal Correctional Complex Coleman in Central Florida, a union official told The Post.
He was listed in stable condition despite suffering a collapsed lung, said Local 506 president Joe Rojas, a New York native who’s worked at the prison for nearly 30 years.
“He is lucky to be alive,” Rojas said of the notorious pedophile. “If it wasn’t for the staff who were there, he wouldn’t be with us today.”
AP
Still, the union leader stressed that while Nassar was listed as being in stable condition, that could change given that he appears to have been “hit in vital organs” with what was likely an unsanitized makeshift metal weapon.
“He’s not out of the woods yet — those are serious injuries,” Rojas said.
So far, it is unclear “how it happened or why it happened,” the union president said — while noting the notorious pedophile usually only mingles with other sex offenders.
“He’s in a special unit where he doesn’t socialize with the normal population,” Rojas said. “He’s already been here since 2018 and we’ve never had an incident with him” before, he said.
However, it came just two weeks after staff protested over alarming levels of understaffing, which Rojas said was “prophetic” of such an attack. “We called this — we said this was going to happen,” he said.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed to The Post that an inmate was assaulted at the prison just after 2:30 p.m. Sunday, but declined to identify him over privacy and security concerns.
“Responding staff immediately initiated life-saving measures,” bureau spokesperson Donald Murphy said. “The inmate was transported by (emergency personnel) to a local hospital for further treatment and evaluation.”
The FBI was notified and an internal investigation is ongoing, said Murphy, who refused to discuss who was responsible for the attack inside the high-security prison that houses more than 1,200 male inmates.
“No staff or other inmates were injured and at no time was the public in danger,” the spokesman said.
The attack was first reported by The Associated Press, which cited two sources.
It prompted Nassar’s first known victim to release a statement, which called on prison officials to better protect Nassar so he can “face the severe prison sentence he received” and avoid “an easy out.”
“This assault on Nassar brings no peace to me personally or to the survivors I’ve spoken with today,” said Sarah Klein, who is now a civil and trial attorney that represents sexual abuse victims.
“The incident forces us to vividly relive our abuse and trauma at the hands of Nassar and the institutions, including law enforcement, that protected him and allowed him to prey on children.
“I urge the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons to see that Nassar is not allowed to escape his sentence and consequences of his horrible crimes.”
More than 300 girls and women, including Olympians like Aly Raisman and Simone Biles, accused the former Michigan State University sports doctor of sexually abusing them under the guise of medical treatment in a pattern of horrendous abuse that stretched back decades.
He eventually admitted sexually assaulting athletes at the university and USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympians. The abuse led to three separate prison sentences in state and federal trials.
Michigan Judge Rosemarie Aquilina even told Nassar it was her “honor and privilege to sentence” him to 40 to 175 years in prison in January 2018.
Olympians Aly Raisman and Simone Biles accused Nassar of sexually abusing them.
AP
“I just signed your death warrant,” she told him. “You do not deserve to walk outside a prison ever again.”
More than 65 women then gave impact statements during a separate trial in which Nassar got a 40- to 125-year sentence for abusing young girls at the Twistars Gymnastics Club in Dimondale, Michigan.
During that trial, a raging father whose three daughters said they were all molested by Nassar tried to attack him in court after asking for “five minutes in a locked room with this demon.”
Nassar was also sentenced to 60 years in federal prison on child pornography charges.
During sentencing in that case, District Judge Janet Neff said that the “predator” should “never again have access to children.”
Michigan State Police arrested him in 2016, but the university was accused of missing many opportunities to detain the predator and agreed to a $500 million settlement with his victims.
USA Gymnastics and the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee also agreed to a $380 million settlement for failing to protect their young athletes from Nassar’s abuse.
Larry Nassar stabbing suspect says attack provoked by comment
on Wimbledon players, per report
Cydney Henderson
USA TODAY
More details are emerging about the stabbing of former sports doctor Larry Nassar, who is serving a decadeslong prison sentence in Florida after being convicted of sexually abusing young female gymnasts.
Nassar, 59, was stabbed six times in the chest and twice each in the neck and back, according to Joe Rojas, president of Local 506, the union that represents employees at the United States Penitentiary, Coleman in Sumterville, Florida, where Nassar is incarcerated.
The Associated Press identified Nassar's assailant as 49-year-old inmate Shane McMillan, who told prison officials that he attacked Nassar in his cell after the former U.S. women’s gymnastics team doctor made a crude comment while watching Wimbledon coverage on television. According to the outlet, McMillan said Nassar "made a comment about wanting to see girls playing in the Wimbledon women’s match."
Lifesaving measures were performed on Nassar before he was transported to a local hospital for further treatment. He was in stable condition as of Monday with injuries that included a collapsed lung, Rojas told USA TODAY Sports.
Larry Nassar, a former sports doctor who admitted molesting some of the nation's top gymnasts, pictured on Feb. 5, 2018.
Sunday's altercation marked the second time Nassar was attacked in prison.
Nassar, who is serving an effective life sentence after pleading guilty in 2017 to federal child pornography charges and state sexual abuse charges, was moved from a prison in Tucson, Arizona, to a holding facility in Oklahoma City after he was assaulted while a member of the general prison population just six months after sentencing. He was eventually transferred to the Florida prison.
McMillan was originally sentenced to more than 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine in Wyoming in 2002, but his sentence was nearly doubled after he was involved in several prison attacks. McMillan was convicted for assaulting a correctional officer in Louisiana in 2006 and for attempting to stab another inmate to death in Florence, Colorado in 2011. He's scheduled to be released in 2046, but he could face a lengthier sentence if charged and convicted for the attack on Nassar.
What could he possibly have said that would trigger a man like McMillan to attack him? This is an example of how low on the food-chain child sex abusers are. It may also be an indication of how deep in Hell he will spend eternity.
Contributing: Steve Gardner, Nancy Armour; The Associated Press
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Manson Family member Leslie Van Houten freed: What to know
Van Houten, who turns 74 next month, is easily the most well-known Manson associate to be released
Chris Iorfida · CBC News · Posted: Jul 12, 2023 8:25 AM PDT | Last Updated: July 12
Leslie Van Houten is shown during a break from a hearing before the California Board of Parole Hearings at the California Institution for Women in Chino, Calif., on April 14, 2016. Van Houten has been approved for parole five times, but only this time was she ultimately released.
(Nick Ut/The Associated Press)
Leslie Van Houten was freed from a California prison on Tuesday, a stunning development after she had served more than a half-century for one of the infamous murders carried about by Charles Manson followers.
Here are some things to know about her release, part of one of the most notorious murder cases in modern American history.
She's been out before, though not free
Even by the standards of the Manson Family, the 73-year-old Van Houten has experienced a legal odyssey, with multiple trials.
She was originally sentenced to death for helping Manson's followers carry out the August 1969 killings of Leno LaBianca, a grocer in Los Angeles, and his wife, Rosemary. Those murders came one night after the shocking killings of actress Sharon Tate and four others.
Van Houten is shown in a March 29, 1971, photo. Her conviction from that year's trial, which led to a death sentence, was ultimately tossed, although she would be convicted again.
(The Associated Press)
Van Houten, then 19, stabbed Rosemary LaBianca, though arguments have persisted whether that act was pre- or post-mortem. Her sentence was later commuted to life in prison when the California Supreme Court overturned the state's death penalty law in 1972.
But that first conviction was then thrown out on appeal, as her attorney died during trial and she wasn't granted a delay.
Charles Manson cult follower Leslie Van Houten released from California jail
A subsequent court proceeding resulted in a mistrial, with seven jurors voting for a murder conviction and five believing she was guilty of manslaughter.
The district attorney's office wouldn't consider a manslaughter plea deal, and she was then convicted of murder at a mid-1978 trial. But for about six months before that trial, she was out on bail and attended classes to become a legal secretary.
What was different this time
California is one of only two U.S. states in which a governor can reverse a parole board decision. That authority has been exercised by multiple governors over the years with respect to Manson associates convicted of murder, including on five occasions after the state board recommended parole for Van Houten.
Those governor decisions have been approved by the courts, but California Gov. Gavin Newsom's office erred after a 2020 reversal and Van Houten legal's team successfully took up the matter with the state's appellate court.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has previously reversed parole board recommendations for Charles Manson followers, but an appellate court didn't uphold the latest decision.
(Rich Pedroncelli/The Associated Press)
The judges took issue with Newsom's claim that Van Houten did not adequately explain how she fell under Manson's influence. At her parole hearings, she has discussed at length how her parents' divorce, her drug and alcohol abuse, and a forced illegal abortion led her down a path that left her vulnerable to him.
Hadar Aviram, author of 2020's Yesterday's Monsters: The Manson Family Cases and the Illusion of Parole, wrote in a recent blog entry on her website that, "what paved the way to Van Houten's release was the re-emergence of adolescence as a relevant factor for parole."
There's been much discussion in recent years involving neuroscience and the teen brain and what is an appropriate sentence for young persons convicted of violent crimes.
Van Houten was a drug-consuming teenage runaway who had experienced a traumatic abortion when she met Manson, in his mid-30s at the time. Manson then plied his followers with drugs and used sex to manipulate them, when not subjecting them to his violent prophecies.
She's had supporters for her release
Relatives of the victims are appalled by the prospect of Van Houten being released.
"My family and I are heartbroken because we're once again reminded of all the years that we have not had my father and my stepmother with us," Cory LaBianca, Leno LaBianca's daughter, told The Associated Press last week. "My children and my grandchildren never got an opportunity to get to know either of them, which has been a huge void for my family."
B.C.-based Karlene Faith, who died in 2017, was among those who supported Van Houten's release. The Simon Fraser University professor met Van Houten in the early 1970s while teaching in California prisons, and in 2001 wrote The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten.
The most famous Van Houten supporter is likely filmmaker John Waters, who has visited Van Houten in prison since the 1980s and wrote about her in one of the essays in the 2010 book Role Models.
"Somebody has to stick up for the worst people in the world. They weren't born bad," Waters said in a New York Times profile.
Waters has argued it is believable that a hardened criminal like Manson, who had spent much of his teens and 20s in prison, could influence an LSD-addled young person.
Not the 1st convicted of murder to be released
Van Houten spent about 53 years in custody. According to a 2018 Justice Department report, the median time served in state prison for murder across the U.S. is 18 years. Aviram, in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times in May, said her data indicated that the median time for murder convictions in California has risen to 28 years in recent times, with the prison population getting older and the state last carrying out executions in 2006.
Van Houten is the first member of the cult involved in either of the Tate or LaBianca murders to be released, but not the first with a murder conviction to be released.
This combination of file photos shows Charles Manson in one of his last prison photos and at the time of his trial in 1971. Manson died in November 2017. (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Wally Fong/AP)
Steve (Clem) Grogan was sentenced to death in 1971 for the killing of elderly ranch hand Donald Shea, a murder that took place two weeks after the grisly Tate-LaBianca weekend but was little known for a time. The judge in the case re-sentenced him to life imprisonment, stating that Grogan was "too stupid and too hopped on drugs to decide anything on his own."
Despite that life sentence, Grogan has been out of prison since the 1980s, likely earning credit for telling authorities in 1977 where Shea was buried.
Other Manson followers convicted of crimes other than homicides have been out for years, including Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme, who once attempted to shoot then-president Gerald Ford.
Which Manson Family members are still behind bars?
Bruce Davis, Bobby Beausoleil and Patricia Krenwinkel, all between 75 and 80, have all been recommended for parole at various times, but in each case where that has happened, the governor in power has reversed the decision.
Charles (Tex) Watson, 77, helped carry out the murders at the Tate gathering and at the residence of the LaBiancas. He is generally considered the least likely candidate to be released and in late 2021 was denied parole for an 18th time.
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Kevin Spacey testifies he’s ‘a big flirt’ being stabbed in the back by ex-lovers
By Lee Brown
July 13, 2023 9:19am Updated
Kevin Spacey started testifying at his UK sex-assault trial on Thursday.
REUTERS
Kevin Spacey took the stand in his UK sex-assault trial Thursday, claiming he is just “a big flirt” who’s being stabbed in the back by former lovers.
The 63-year-old Academy Award winner wistfully recalled his “romantic” and “somewhat sexual” friendship with the first of his four accusers, whom he described as “funny and charming and flirtatious.”
“I liked him greatly. We had a good time together. We laughed a lot,” he told jurors at Southwark Crown Court of the man accusing him of assaulting him up to 12 times.
“I never thought that (the man) I knew would … 20 years later stab me in the back,” he said, adding he is “crushed” by it.
Spacey said he took the lead with the man, telling the London court: “I’m a flirt, I’m a big flirt.”
Spacey told jurors that he’s “a big flirt” who’s been stabbed in the back.
Julia Quenzler / SWNS
He denied the man’s allegations that he groped him aggressively, maintaining that any contact was consensual.
“It didn’t happen in a violent, aggressive, painful way. It was gentle and it was touching and it was, in my mind, romantic,” he told jurors.
“We never had sex together because he made it clear that he didn’t want to go any further,” he said. “And I respected that.”
He claimed other allegations made “no logical sense,” suggesting they were made by men who regretted getting “intimate” with him.
Spacey, 63, has pleaded not guilty to 12 charges that include sexual and indecent assault counts and one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.
The four accusers have alleged that Spacey aggressively groped them and in one case performed oral sex while they were passed out. All the alleged attacks were between 2001 and 2013.
Prosecutor Christine Agnew has called Spacey a “sexual bully” who “delights in making others feel powerless and uncomfortable.”
One of the accusers testified that Spacey’s unwanted fondling “wasn’t like a caress … It was like a cobra coming out and getting hold.”
"Grab 'em right by the -------", sounds like the gay version of the Donald Trump Unsofisticated Method of Seduction.
However, the actor’s attorney, Patrick Gibbs, told the jury Thursday that the complainants had reimagined consensual encounters “with a sinister spin” or, in some cases, simply “made up” their accounts.
Spacey, who arrived at court Thursday in a London taxi, could face jail if convicted — but hopes for a career comeback if acquitted.
“There are people right now who are ready to hire me the moment I am cleared of these charges in London,” Spacey told Germany’s Zeit magazine this month.
Who would that be, Bud Light?
With Post wires
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