"To date Prince Andrew has provided zero cooperation' — U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman

Former Republican Governor of Kentucky Matt Bevin pardoned 28 prisoners on his way out of office, including Micah Schoettle, convicted of repeatedly raping a nine year old girl over a two year period, often while her sister was present. Bevin told a conservative talk-show host that he believed Schoettle had been falsely accused and convicted, citing his understanding that child rape survivor's hymen was intact (a peer-reviewed study of girls who survive rape found that only 2.1% of them had visible damage to their hymens; Bevin told an interviewer "This is perhaps more specific than people would want, but trust me, if you have been repeatedly sexually violated as a small child by an adult, there are going to be repercussions of that physically and medically"). Read the rest

MATT BEVIN: “Her hymen was intact. There's no way that girl was raped. She made it up.” Read the rest

Sayragul Sauytbay is a Chinese Muslim of Kazakh descent who escaped en route to one of the notorious Xinjiang province concentration camps for Muslims in 2018, after she was sentenced to serve as a regular inmate following her release after more than a year's incarceration as a camp teacher; after she escaped into Kazakhstan, she was given asylum in Sweden. Read the rest

Ronan Farrow reports in his forthcoming book Catch and Kill [Amazon] that TV host Matt Lauer is accused of raping a colleague at NBC News. Read the rest

"Emily Doe" no more, Chanel Miller, the woman who survived Brock Turner's attacks will be appearing on 60 Minutes. Turner was convicted of three felony sexual assault charges and his mere 6-month prison sentence set him up as a poster boy for white male privilege in America.

CBS:

Miller read her victim impact statement in court to her assailant, the former Stanford swimming standout Brock Turner, who was convicted of three felony sexual assault charges supported by two eyewitnesses who stopped and subdued him. Her story became a cause célèbre when the statement was published online after Turner was sentenced to six months jail time. In the statement, "Emily" recounts her inability to control her own narrative in a justice system she says is brutal and dehumanizing for victims.

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America has an epidemic of untested rape kits, thanks to the institutional misogyny of police departments and prosecutors, especially when it comes to rapes committed against poor and racialized women. Read the rest

In a characteristically brilliant essay, historian, activist and writer Rebecca Solnit connects the dots between the sexual abuses of Jeffrey Epstein, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Brett Kavanaugh, Harvey Weinstein, and the unnamed 16-year-old boy whose admitted rape was excused because the judge said that This young man comes from a good family who put him into an excellent school where he was doing extremely well: in each case, there was an elaborate scheme to silence and discredit the survivors of sexual violence, abetted by networks of (mostly) men who treat the disclosure of sexual assaults as a worse offense than committing the assaults themselves. Read the rest

'He lunges at me, pushes me against the wall, hitting my head quite badly, and puts his mouth against my lips.' Then it gets worse.

Witness in Mueller Trump-Russia probe arrested for child pornography

Online travel and restaurant booking site TripAdvisor will introduce new safety filters after people who used the site raised concerns over sexual assaults. TripAdvisor says it found 1,100 reviews that referenced sexual assault in just the last year alone. Read the rest

Tchiya Amet says Neil DeGrasse Tyson raped her in the 1980s. As his star rose, no one believed her. Three additional women, one for the first time, now say Neil sexually harassed them. This isn't looking good for the popular science entertainment personality. Read the rest

When Anita Hill testified about the sexual abuse she'd suffered at Clarence Thomas's hands, Senate Republicans and the press pilloried her, calling her a liar and worse, and going on to confirm Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Read the rest

Cardinal Blase Cupich offers a distinctively Catholic response to the church's renewed abuse crisis: the Pope "has a bigger agenda" than going down the "rabbit hole" of allegations. "He's got to get on with other things."

In a bizarre interview with a Chicago NBC affiliate, Cardinal Blaise Cupich, head of the Archdiocese of Chicago, suggested recent claims made by a former apostolic nuncio — the Vatican's envoy to the United States — that Pope Francis not only disregarded sexual abuse allegations against Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, but promoted McCarrick and sought his counsel, were going down a "rabbit hole."

The Pope, Cupich told NBC, has more important things to attend to than sex abuse scandals, like climate change and immigration.

The video of his statements is essential viewing.

If you want them held responsible, you're going to have to stop caring how. Read the rest

Bill Donohue, the president of the ultra-conservative Catholic League, has called the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's report on the official coverups of the priestly rape of children an "obscene lie," insisting that rape was relatively rare, because most of the sexual abuse committed by the priesthood doesn't qualify as rape, because the priests didn't penetrate their victims. Read the rest

A German 48-year old citizen and her 39-year old partner have been sentenced to 12 years in prison after being found guilty of repeatedly raping her son. If that’s not enough, the filth also sold the boy to pedophiles she found on the Dark Net, who further abused the child and filmed it, over a two-year period. It goes without saying that Germany, and most anyone else that’s heard about it, has been horrified by the case.

From The Guardian:

In Tuesday’s verdict, the couple was ordered to pay €42,500 (£38,000) in compensation to the boy and another victim, a young girl.

Local authorities have been accused of failing to protect the boy, who now lives with a foster family. The mother’s partner was supposed to be banned from having contact with children. Officials removed the boy from the family in March last year, but a local court sent him back weeks later.

According to The Telegraph, six others were jailed for their involvement in the sexual abuse of the boy. Because of the way that Germany handles criminal cases that involve rape, none of the parties responsible can be named by the media.

I can’t even begin to imagine the life-long harm that’s been done to those kids in the name of self-fulfillment and greed, nor can I understand the how a system designed to protect society’s most vulnerable failed them them so completely.

Image via Flickr, courtesy of Blogtrepreneur Read the rest

Convicted rapist Brock Turner is seeking to have his rape conviction overturned, claiming he only wanted "outercourse" and didn't intend to rape his victim.

It is amazing what rich parents will pay for.

Via HuffPo:

A lawyer for convicted rapist Brock Turner attempted to overturn the former Stanford University swimmer’s assault conviction during an appellate court hearing in San Jose, California, on Tuesday.

Attorney Eric Multhaup argued to three appellate court justices that his client only wanted “outercourse” ― sexual contact while fully clothed, he explained ― not intercourse, The Mercury News of San Jose reported. Multhaup told the justices that Turner never intended to rape the woman, who was identified only as “Jane Doe” throughout the trial.

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