“YouTube is disabling all comments on videos featuring young children as it attempts to head off an organised ring of paedophiles who were using its site to trade clips of young girls in states of undress,” says the Guardian's Alex Hern. Read the rest
Christopher Simcox, who co-founded the now-disbanded Minuteman Civil Defense Corps white supremacist militia group, received a prison sentence of over 19 years today from an Arizona court. Read the rest
Before we knew him as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's blockbuster Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Elijah Wood was a child actor. In a recent interview with Britain's Sunday Times, Wood spoke out on sexual abuse of young actors in Hollywood, and says “a lot of vipers” roam the upper echelons of the entertainment biz, preying on naïvete and eagerness for fame.
“Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood. It was all organized. There are a lot of vipers in this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind,” he told the Times.
“There is darkness in the underbelly. What bums me about these situations is that the victims can’t speak as loudly as the people in power. That’s the tragedy of attempting to reveal what is happening to innocent people: they can be squashed, but their lives have been irreparably damaged.”
“If you’re innocent, you have very little knowledge of the world and you want to succeed,” he added. “People with parasitic interests will see you as their prey. What upsets me about these situations is that the victims can’t speak as loudly as the people in power.”
Wood is now 35. As a child, he performed with fellow child star alongside Macaulay Culkin in “The Good Son,” and had a part in the “Flipper” remake. He said his mother, Debra, protected him from predators back then, and he “never went to parties where that kind of thing was going on.”
Here's a non-paywalled report that quotes extensively from the Times: Elijah Wood Calls Out Hollywood's Pedophile Problem [the daily beast]
The paywalled Sunday Times interview was booked to promote his latest film The Trust, which tells the tale of corrupt cops who plan to steal drug money. Read the rest
A subsitute high school teacher in Easton, Pennsylvania was taken into police custody Tuesday and charged with institutional sexual assault after admitting to a judge that she had been having sex with a student since 2015. Read the rest
It's not just about child pornography found on his computer, possession of which he reportedly will admit to in court.
From the AP wire:
Federal prosecutors have released documents accusing longtime Subway pitchman Jared Fogle of engaging in sex acts with minors and receiving child pornography. Documents released Wednesday by the U.S. attorney's office in Indianapolis say the 37-year-old Fogle faces one count of travel to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor and one count of distribution and receipt of child pornography.… Among the allegations in the document are that Fogle traveled to New York City to pay for sex acts with minors while he stayed in upscale hotels…
Fogle's computers and other gear were snatched by prosecutors on a recent raid at his home in Zionsville, Indiana. The raid followed the arrest of Russell Taylor, the director of The Jared Foundation, Fogle's childhood obesity charity, on child pornography charges. Fogle fired Taylor and said he was shocked by the allegations.
Subway, for whom Fogle became a spokesman after losing 200 pounds eating their sandwiches, confirmed Tuesday that he is no longer employed by them. No mention of the 15-year relationship can be found on their website.
We no longer have a relationship with Jared and have no further comment.
— SUBWAY® (@SUBWAY) August 18, 2015
Business Insider obtained an affidavit detailing the charges. Hayley Peterson:
Read the restAccording to the affidavit obtained by Business Insider, Fogle asked the former Subway franchisee in May 2008 to set up a meeting for him with her cousin.
