Mix, who is now 69, was denied by the California Board of Parole Hearings under the elderly parole program. District Attorney Mike Hestrin swiftly affirmed the decision.

“The decision to deny early release for Charles Mix reflects the seriousness of the crime and the continued risk he poses to public safety and his victims,” said District Attorney Mike Hestrin. “Our responsibility is to ensure justice is served, while recognizing the emotional strain these hearings place on victims, their families, and the community. It’s crucial that those who commit serious offenses are held fully accountable for their actions.”

Mix was 49 when he committed the crimes he was convicted for, including “willful child cruelty, kidnapping for rape and lewd acts on a child under 14,” a statement from Hestrin’s office read.

The victim is now 27 years old and reports that she is too traumatized to speak publicly about the horrific incident. Her sister spoke on her behalf with her permission.

Of Mix, the victim’s sister, Claira Stansbury said “Some people aren’t able to be rehabilitated. He is a pedophile, and instead of worrying so much about the man who made his choice, they need to be focused on the victim and their families.”

Still, Mix will have another chance at parole in seven years. He has served 20 years of his long sentence.

Residents who would like to voice their concerns about the possible release of inmates that pose a risk to the community can visit Riverside County’s District Attorney Website at: Paroled Inmates | Riverside County District Attorney (rivcoda.org).

The post RivCo Man Who Abducted, Sexually Assaulted Girl Sought Early Release appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — “That ’70s Show” star Danny Masterson was led out in handcuffs from a Los Angeles courtroom Wednesday and could get 30 years to life in prison after a jury found him guilty on two of three counts of rape at his second trial, in which the Church of Scientology played a central role.

Masterson’s wife, actor and model Bijou Phillips, gasped when the verdict was read and wept as he was taken into custody, while a group of family and friends who sat stone-faced behind him throughout both trials.

The jury of seven women and five men reached the verdict after deliberating for seven days spread over two weeks. They could not reach a verdict on the third count, that alleged Masterson raped a longtime girlfriend. They had voted 8-4 in favor of conviction.

Masterson, 47, will be held without bail until he is sentenced. No sentencing date has yet been set, but the judge told Masterson and his lawyers to return to court Aug. 4 for a hearing.

“I am experiencing a complex array of emotions — relief, exhaustion, strength, sadness — knowing that my abuser, Danny Masterson, will face accountability for his criminal behavior,” one of the women, whom Masterson knew as a fellow member of the church and was convicted of raping at his home in 2003, said in a statement.

A second woman, a former girlfriend, whose count left the jury deadlocked, said in the statement: “While I’m encouraged that Danny Masterson will face some criminal punishment, I am devastated that he has dodged criminal accountability for his heinous conduct against me.”

A spokesperson for Masterson declined comment, but his attorneys will almost certainly appeal.

After a deadlocked jury led to a mistrial in December, prosecutors retried Masterson, saying he forcibly raped three women in his Hollywood Hills home between 2001 and 2003. They told jurors he drugged the women’s drinks so he could rape them. They said he used his prominence in the church — where all three women were also members at the time — to avoid consequences for decades.

“We want to express our gratitude to the three women who came forward and bravely shared their experiences,” Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement after the verdict Wednesday. “Their courage and strength have been an inspiration to us all.”

Masterson did not testify, and his lawyers called no witnesses. The defense argued that the acts were consensual, and attempted to discredit the women’s stories by highlighting changes and inconsistencies over time, which they said showed signs of coordination between them.

“If you decide that a witness deliberately lied about something in this case,” defense attorney Philip Cohen told jurors, going through their instructions in his closing argument, “You should consider not believing anything that witness says.”

The Church of Scientology played a significant role in the first trial but arguably an even larger one in the second. Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo allowed expert testimony on church policy from a former official in Scientology leadership who has become a prominent opponent.

Tensions ran high in the courtroom between current and former Scientologists, and even leaked into testimony, with the accusers saying on the stand that they felt intimidated by some members in the room.

Actor Leah Remini, a former member who has become the church’s highest-profile critic, sat in on the trial at times, putting her arm around one of the accusers to comfort her during closing arguments.

Remini said on Twitter that the two guilty verdicts in the retrial are “a relief. The women who survived Danny Masterson’s predation are heroes. For years, they and their families have faced vicious attacks and harassment from Scientology and Danny’s well-funded legal team,” she posted. “Nevertheless, they soldiered on, determined to seek justice.”

The alleged harassment, which the church denies engaging in, is the subject of a civil lawsuit filed by two of the accusers.

Founded in 1953 by L. Ron Hubbard, the Church of Scientology has many members who work in Hollywood. The judge kept limits on how much prosecutors could talk about the church, and primarily allowed it to explain why the women took so long to go to authorities.

The women testified that when they reported Masterson to church officials, they were told they were not raped, were put through ethics programs themselves, and were warned against going to law enforcement to report a member of such high standing.

“They were raped, they were punished for it, and they were retaliated against,” Deputy District Attorney Reinhold Mueller told jurors in his closing argument. “Scientology told them there’s no justice for them. You have the opportunity to show them there is justice.”

The church vehemently denied having any policy that forbids members from going to secular authorities.

Next week the judge who oversaw the criminal case will hold a hearing to determine how a lawyer who represents the Church of Scientology had evidence that the prosecution had shared with the defense. The evidence involved links that the lawyer accidentally included in an email to Mueller.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they’ve been sexually abused.

Testimony in this case was graphic and emotional.

The two women whose testimony led to Masterson’s conviction said that in 2003, he gave them drinks and that they then became woozy or passed out before he violently raped them. He knew both from social circles in the church.

The third, Masterson’s then-girlfriend of five years whose count left the jury deadlocked, said she awoke to find him raping her, and had to pull his hair to stop him.

The issue of drugging also played a major role in the retrial. At the first, Olmedo only allowed prosecutors and accusers to describe their disorientation, and to imply that they were drugged. The second time, they were allowed to argue it directly, and the prosecution attempted to make it a major factor, to no avail.

“The defendant drugs his victims to gain control,” Deputy District Attorney Ariel Anson said in her closing argument. “He does this to take away his victims’ ability to consent.”

Masterson was not charged with any counts of drugging, and there is no toxicology evidence to back up the assertion. His attorney asked for a mistrial over the issue’s inclusion. The motion was denied, but the issue is likely to be a major factor in any potential appeal.

These charges date to a period when Masterson was at the height of his fame, starring from 1998 until 2006 as Steven Hyde on Fox’s “That ’70s Show” — the show that made stars of Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis and Topher Grace.

Masterson had reunited with Kutcher on the 2016 Netflix comedy “The Ranch,” but was written off the show when an LAPD investigation was revealed in December 2017.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post ‘That ‘70s Show’ star Danny Masterson found guilty of 2 rape counts, is led from court in handcuffs appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

E. Jean Carroll testified in sometimes searing detail about the day she says Donald Trump raped her in a department store dressing room two decades before he became president, allegations the Republican has repeatedly and vehemently denied.

Taking the witness stand in support of Carroll this week, two friends told jurors that they spoke with the former magazine columnist shortly after the alleged 1996 attack, and that they believe she is telling the truth. Other women testified about separate encounters; one said Trump grabbed and groped her while they were on a flight in the late 1970s, the other told jurors he forcibly kissed her at his Florida home in 2005.

The accounts, shared during the civil trial on Carroll’s claims of battery and defamation against Trump, mark the first time that any of the numerous allegations of sexual misconduct against the former president have been heard in a court trial. Given a chance to rebut Carroll’s accusations on the witness stand, Trump declined to make an appearance, instead traveling overseas. He told reporters in Ireland that he may still testify in person, though his attorney said in court that he will not and that they will not present other witnesses.

For most politicians, the allegations laid out in a New York courtroom would be enough to torpedo any future aspirations. But Trump isn’t the average politician, a fact that became clear when he won the 2016 presidential contest a month after the release of an “Access Hollywood” tape in which he boasted about sexually assaulting women and said that as a star, “you can do anything.”

Now, as Trump campaigns for a 2024 presidential bid, the Carroll case provides another test of Trump’s ability to survive scandals that would sink others. Some political observers say the public already has hardened opinions of the former president — love him or hate him — and that claims about him abusing women aren’t new.

“At this point, the American people have a pretty good sense of Donald Trump’s character, so it is unlikely that the Carroll trial will change many voters’ minds,” said Christina Wolbrecht, a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame who studies politics and gender.

She said a more relevant question is whether a verdict against Trump in this trial, or convictions in other cases, will scare away potential donors or advisers.

In addition to the Carroll case, Trump was recently charged in New York with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a hush-money scheme to cover up allegations of extramarital affairs during the 2016 campaign. He is also under criminal investigation over his attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss and his retention of classified documents after leaving office.

Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who has worked with President Joe Biden, said that during recent focus groups she’s been conducting with Democratic and independent likely voters on Trump and his legal troubles, women kept volunteering that the case they were most troubled by is “the rape case.” That has left Lake thinking the trial testimony could be more damaging than she initially assumed.

“I was flabbergasted, because I thought this was baked in” to how voters feel about Trump, Lake said. “They knew he didn’t respect women and that he was a real playboy, but rape is different.”

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, did not respond to a message seeking comment for this story.

Trump’s other legal issues have so far brought limited political fallout, but that could change, according to a poll last month by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

It found only 4 in 10 U.S. adults believe Trump acted illegally in the New York hush-money case. About half of voters believe he broke the law in Georgia, where he is under investigation for interfering in the 2020 election vote count, the poll found.

It also showed about half feel similarly about Trump’s role in his supporters’ storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and his handling of classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago. The poll did not ask about the Carroll case.

Carroll filed a defamation suit against Trump while he was still president, over denials and insults he made about her. She filed the rape claim in November, under a New York state law that temporarily allows sexual assault victims to sue over alleged attacks that happened even decades ago. Because it is a civil and not criminal case, Trump faces no prison time; Carroll is seeking unspecified monetary damages.

Jurors did see parts of a recorded deposition in which Trump answered questions under oath last fall. He called Carroll a “nut job” and “mentally sick,” adding, “She said that I did something to her that never took place.” The jury also was shown the “Access Hollywood” tape.

Trump, his attorneys and his supporters have dismissed Carroll’s allegations as politically motivated attacks and an attempt to sell more copies of her memoir. Trump has said he wasn’t at the department store with Carroll and had no clue who she was when she first aired the story publicly. On his social media network last week, Trump called the case “a made up SCAM.”

At trial, Trump’s attorney also questioned why Carroll didn’t report the alleged assault to police at the time; Carroll, 79, said many people her age were conditioned to keep quiet about such attacks. Carroll, a registered Democrat, also testified that she voted for Trump’s Democratic opponents in 2016 and 2020 but said that has nothing to do with her lawsuit.

Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of Women’s March, said she is hopeful that Carroll’s case will mobilize voters. After Trump’s election, millions of people turned out to protest him at women’s marches across the country, and the events have been credited with sparking increased political involvement by women, including seeing a record number of women elected to the U.S. House in the 2018 midterms.

“I hope that we can take this moment as another proof point of the absolutely dire, critically dire need to build women’s political power in this country,” she said.

The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Trump is accused in court of rape. Will it matter in 2024? appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

NEW YORK (AP) — A magazine columnist who says Donald Trump raped her in a department store’s dressing room two decades before he became president acknowledged Monday that she never followed her own advice to readers that they report sexual attacks to police.

E. Jean Carroll told a federal civil court jury that the reason was generational.

The 79-year-old said that as “a member of the Silent Generation,” she was conditioned to keep her chin up and not to complain.

“The fact that I never went to the police is not surprising for somebody my age,” she testified as Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina cross-examined Carroll about why she never went to authorities about the alleged rape, which Trump denies. Carroll said she had called police only once in her life, when she feared the mailbox at a home where she was staying was going to be damaged on Halloween.

“You would call police if a mailbox was attacked,” Tacopina asked, “but not if you yourself were attacked?”

Carroll replied that at the time, she was ashamed of what she alleges happened. She later added that she was mindful of Trump’s power and connections in New York and “didn’t think police would take me seriously.”

Research has repeatedly found that rapes and sexual assaults are among the types of violent crime least likely to be reported to police. An annual U.S. crime victimization survey found that less than 23% of rapes and sexual assaults were reported in 2021 and 2020, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Carroll on Monday wrapped up three days of testimony in the trial stemming from her lawsuit against Trump. The trial is due to continue Tuesday with other witnesses on her behalf. Trump, who traveled to Scotland on Monday to open a new golf course at his resort near Aberdeen, Scotland, has not attended the trial. Jurors are expected to see parts of a recording of him answering questions under oath last fall.

Carroll has said the then-real estate magnate raped her in the spring of 1996 at the tony Bergdorf Goodman store after they went into a dressing room together in an encounter that she said was fun and flirtatious until Trump became violent. She said she eventually kneed him and fled.

Trump, 76, says that he was never at the store with Carroll and never knew her beyond a fleeting moment when a 1987 picture was taken of them in a group setting.

Shortly before Carroll first took the stand last week, Trump called the rape accusation “a fraudulent & false story” on his social media platform.

Seeking to cast Carroll’s allegation as fiction, Tacopina on Monday brought up a 2012 episode of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” in which a male character briefly speaks about consensually acting out a sexual fantasy that involves bursting in on a woman trying on lingerie in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room. Jurors saw an email in which someone mentioned the episode to Carroll after she went public with her claim in 2019.

Carroll testified that she has never seen the episode, didn’t know about it before receiving the email and didn’t make up her accusation off TV. She said she wasn’t entirely surprised at the points of similarity.

“The ‘Law & Order’ writers are very good about keying into the psyches of their viewers,” said Carroll, asserting that many people have misplaced fantasies about rape.

Her renewed testimony came shortly after Tacopina asked Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who is overseeing the civil proceedings, to declare a mistrial because of rulings he made that Tacopina said favored Carroll. The judge rejected the request.

Carroll filed suit against Trump in November, under a New York state law that temporarily allows sexual assault victims to sue over alleged attacks that happened even decades ago.

Amid a flurry of public denials and insults from Trump that prompted Carroll to add a defamation claim to the lawsuit, Trump has insisted that Carroll was motivated by political reasons and a desire to sell copies of her 2019 memoir.

Carroll has testified that she spoke out because of the #MeToo movement, which gained prominence in 2017.

Carroll wrote an advice column for Elle magazine for nearly three decades, and Tacopina confronted her Monday with instances in which she advised contacting law enforcement authorities after people wrote in about sexual assaults and threats from partners and exes.

“I always — in most cases — advised my readers to go to the police,” Carroll acknowledged.

Tacopina also pointed out that although Carroll’s memoir described sexual assaults by multiple men over the course of her life, Trump was the only one she sued. And, although Trump has insisted he had no sexual encounter — indeed, “no anything” — with Carroll, his attorney asked her whether what allegedly happened could “somehow be viewed as consensual.”

“It was not consensual,” she said emphatically.

The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Trump accuser says many in her generation didn’t report rape appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

NEW YORK (AP) — Questioned for a lawsuit, former President Donald Trump angrily hurled insults and threatened to sue the columnist who accused him of raping her in a department store in the 1990s, according to excerpts of his videotaped testimony unsealed by a court on Friday.

Portions of his 5 1/2-hour October deposition in a lawsuit filed by columnist E. Jean Carroll were released publicly after a federal judge rejected his lawyers’ request that it remained sealed.

“She said that I did something to her that never took place. There was no anything. I know nothing about this nut job,” he said, according to the transcript.

The excerpts reveal a contentious battle between Trump and Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for Carroll, who questioned him as Trump called the former longtime Elle magazine columnist the perpetrator of “a complete scam” in which she described the rape as she “was promoting a really crummy book.”

“I will sue her after this is over, and that’s the thing I really look forward to doing. And I’ll sue you too,” he told Kaplan.

The release of excerpts from the deposition came the same day as Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, unrelated to the lawyer, also refused a request by Trump’s attorneys to toss out two lawsuits by Carroll alleging defamation and rape. An April trial is planned.

Trump has repeatedly said the encounter with Carroll in the mid-1990s at an upscale Manhattan department store never happened.

In his testimony, Trump repeatedly attacked Carroll’s depiction of him as a rapist.

Trump said he knew it wasn’t “politically correct” to say “she’s not my type” when he responded to claims shortly after Carroll’s 2019 book was published. The writer alleged she was attacked by Trump in a dressing room after they had a chance meeting in the store and she agreed to help him pick out lingerie for a friend.

“But I’ll say it anyway,” he said. “She’s accusing me of rape, a woman that I have no idea who she is. It came out of the blue. She’s accusing me of raping her, the worst thing you can do, the worst charge.”

Speaking to her attorney, he added: “And you know it’s not true too. You’re a political operative also. You’re a disgrace. But she’s accusing me and so are you of rape, and it never took place.”

At one point in the deposition, Trump called Carroll “sick, mentally sick.” He mischaracterized an interview Carroll had given on CNN, falsely claiming she had talked about enjoying being sexually assaulted. “She actually indicated that she loved it. Okay? She loved it until commercial break,” Trump said. “In fact, I think she said it was sexy, didn’t she? She said it was very sexy to be raped. Didn’t she say that?”

Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, then tried to elicit from Trump that he raped her client.

“So, sir, I just want to confirm: It’s your testimony that E. Jean Carroll said that she loved being sexually assaulted by you?”

Trump answered: “Well, based on her interview with Anderson Cooper, I believe that’s what took place. And we can define that. … I think she said that rape was sexy – which it’s not, by the way.”

What Carroll has said in her writing, and in the interview with Cooper, is that she doesn’t like to use the word rape because some other people “think rape is sexy.” She said she preferred the term “fight.”

At another point in the deposition, Kaplan asked Trump if he had ever touched a woman on her breast or buttocks or any other sexual part without her consent.

“Well, I will tell you no, but you may have some people like your client that lie,” he responded.

Late Friday, Trump attorney Alina Habba issued a statement, saying: “While it was entirely unnecessary for the unsealing of a transcript both parties previously agreed would remain confidential, our client has nothing to hide and looks forward to resolving this meritless case.”

Roberta Kaplan declined to comment on the release of the deposition excerpts.

Kaplan, the Manhattan judge, earlier Friday upheld the lawsuits alleging rape and defamation and seeking unspecified damages by Carroll, saying they could proceed to trial because Trump’s challenges were without merit.

“The fact that Mr. Trump denies Ms. Carroll’s allegations does not enter into the analysis at this stage of the case,” the jurist wrote. “What, if anything, actually occurred must await further proceedings if the complaint withstands the present motion.”

Habba said in a statement: “While we are disappointed with the Court’s decision, we intend to immediately appeal the order and continue to advocate for our client’s constitutionally protected rights.”

In his ruling, the judge said the Adult Survivor’s Act was similar to the Child Victims Act, another New York state law that temporarily allowed victims of sexual assaults when they were children to sue their abusers years later.

Carroll initially sued Trump for defamation after he mocked her claims he sexually assaulted her. Carroll sued Trump with the rape claim in November, when the Adult Survivor’s Act took effect.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Under oath, Trump hurled insults at woman who alleges rape appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — After a month-long trial and nine days of deliberations, Los Angeles jurors on Monday found Harvey Weinstein guilty of the rape and sexual assault of just one of the four accusers he was charged with abusing.

But the three guilty counts involving an Italian actor and model known at the trial as Jane Doe 1 still struck a major blow against the disgraced movie mogul, and provided another #MeToo moment of reckoning, five years after he became a magnet for the movement.

Weinstein, who is two years into a 23-year sentence for a rape and sexual assault conviction in New York that is under appeal, could get up to 24 years in prison in California when he’s sentenced.

He was found guilty of rape, forced oral copulation and another sexual misconduct count involving the woman who said he appeared uninvited at her hotel room door during a Los Angeles film festival in 2013.

“Harvey Weinstein forever destroyed a part of me that night in 2013 and I will never get that back. The criminal trial was brutal and Weinstein’s lawyers put me through hell on the witness stand, but I knew I had to see this through to the end, and I did,” the woman said in a statement after the verdict. “I hope Weinstein never sees the outside of a prison cell during his lifetime.”

Weinstein was acquitted of a sexual battery allegation made by a massage therapist who treated him at a hotel in 2010.

The jury was unable to reach a decision on counts involving two accusers, notably rape and sexual assault charges involving Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker and the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom. A mistrial was declared on those counts.

Weinstein looked down at the table and appeared to put his face in his hands when the initial guilty counts were read. He looked forward as the rest of the verdict was read.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys had no immediate comment on the verdict.

“Harvey Weinstein will never be able to rape another woman. He will spend the rest of his life behind bars where he belongs,” Siebel Newsom said in a statement. “Throughout the trial, Weinstein’s lawyers used sexism, misogyny, and bullying tactics to intimidate, demean, and ridicule us survivors. The trial was a stark reminder that we as a society have work to do.”

Siebel Newsom’s intense and dramatic testimony, in which she described being raped by Weinstein in a hotel room in 2005, brought the trial its most dramatic moments. But only eight of the 12 jurors agreed to find Weinstein guilty of those counts.

Jurors were deadlocked 10-2 on a sexual battery count involving Lauren Young, the only accuser who testified at both Weinstein trials. She said she was a model aspiring to be an actor and screenwriter who was meeting with Weinstein about a script in 2013 when he trapped her in a hotel bathroom, groped her and masturbated in front of her.

Lacking any forensic evidence or eyewitness accounts of years-old allegations, the case hinged heavily on the stories and credibility of the four women at the center of the charges.

The women’s stories echoed the allegations of dozens of others who have emerged since Weinstein became a #MeToo lightning rod starting with stories in the New York Times in 2017. A movie about that reporting, “She Said,” was released during the trial, and jurors were repeatedly warned not to see it.

It was the defense that made #MeToo an issue during the trial, however, emphasizing that none of the four women went to the authorities until after the movement made Weinstein a target.

Defense lawyers said two of the women — including the one he would be found guilty of raping — were entirely lying about their encounters with Weinstein. They said the other two had “100% consensual” sexual interactions that they later reframed.

Defense attorneys said during the trial that if Siebel Newsom hadn’t reached her later prominence she would be “just another bimbo who slept with Harvey Weinstein to get ahead in Hollywood.”

“Regret is not the same thing as rape,” Weinstein attorney Alan Jackson said in his closing argument.

He urged jurors to look past the the women’s emotional testimony and focus on the factual evidence.

“‘Believe us because we’re mad, believe us because we cried,’” Jackson said jurors were being asked to do. “Well, fury does not make fact. And tears do not make truth.”

All the women involved in the charges went by Jane Doe in court. The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly or agree to be named through their attorneys, as the women named here did.

Prosecutors called 40 other witnesses in an attempt to give context and corroboration to those stories. Four were other women who were not part of the charges but testified that Weinstein raped or sexually assaulted them. They were brought to the stand to establish a pattern of sexual predation.

Weinstein beat four other felony charges before the trial even ended when prosecutors said a woman he was charged with raping twice and sexually assaulting twice would not appear to testify. They declined to give a reason. Judge Lisa Lench dismissed those charges.

Weinstein’s latest conviction hands a victory to victims of sexual misconduct of famous men in the wake of some legal setbacks, including the dismissal of Bill Cosby’s conviction last year. The rape trial of “That ’70s Show” actor Danny Masterson, held simultaneously and just down the hall from Weinstein’s, ended in a mistrial. And actor Kevin Spacey was victorious at a sexual battery civil trial in New York last month.

Weinstein’s New York conviction survived an initial appeal, but the case is set to be heard by the state’s highest court next year. The California conviction, also likely to be appealed, means he will not walk free even if the East Coast conviction is thrown out.

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Harvey Weinstein found guilty of rape in Los Angeles trial appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker and the wife of California’s governor, testified on Monday that former film producer Harvey Weinstein raped her in 2005 when she was trying to build a career as a producer and actor.

On the witness stand in Los Angeles Superior Court, Siebel Newsom said she met Weinstein, now 70, at the Toronto Film Festival when she was 31 and had acted in some small film and TV roles.

Weeks later in California, Weinstein invited her to meet him at The Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills for what she thought was a business meeting, she testified. She was surprised to learn that she was supposed to meet Weinstein, then one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood, in his hotel suite, she said.

When she arrived, Weinstein had no interest in discussing her projects, Siebel Newsom said. He went to the bathroom, called her over and began masturbating in front of her, she said, before touching her breasts and becoming “aggressive.”

“I was scared. This was not why I came here,” she said, often breaking into tears. “I just remembered physically trying to back away.”

Siebel Newsom said Weinstein got her onto a bed, though she cannot recall if he carried or dragged her there. He then raped her, she said.

“He was just so big and so determined,” she said. “This was hell.”

Weinstein, the man who became the face of #MeToo allegations five years ago, is serving a 23-year prison sentence for sex crimes in New York. He is now on trial in Los Angeles on 11 charges of rape and sexual assault and has pleaded not guilty.

Siebel Newsom, who was identified in court as Jane Doe #4, is one of four women whose allegations are the basis of the Los Angeles charges against Weinstein. Prosecutors had earlier said there were five accusers.

Siebel Newsom’s attorney confirmed in October that Siebel Newsom would testify in the case.

Defense attorneys have argued that all of Weinstein’s sexual encounters were consensual and that his accusers willingly took part in a “casting couch” culture to further their careers in Hollywood.

At the time of the meeting with Siebel Newsom, she had not met her future husband, current California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and she said she did not tell him what happened until after allegations against Weinstein became public.

In cross-examination, Weinstein attorney Mark Werksman questioned Siebel Newsom about why her husband had accepted campaign donations from the producer. She said the governor returned the money after she told him about her encounter.

Weinstein, 70, was convicted of sexual misconduct in New York in February 2020. He was extradited from New York to a Los Angeles prison in July 2021.

In New York, Weinstein is appealing his conviction and 23-year prison sentence. He could face up to 140 years in prison if convicted on all of the charges in Los Angeles.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Siebel Newsom, wife of California governor, accuses Harvey Weinstein of rape appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

On Tuesday, July 7th, 2020, about 4:00 AM, deputies assigned to the Jurupa Valley Station responded to a residence in the 3700 block of Packard Street, in the City of Jurupa Valley regarding an assault in progress. Deputies arrived to the location and learned, 29 year old Kayron Daniel Burns, a transient from the City of Jurupa Valley, had forced his way into the residence of an  elderly female.  

Burns had left the scene prior to deputies arriving. The investigation revealed Burns had attacked the elderly female and attempted to commit an act of rape. Deputies searched the area and located Burns a few blocks away.  Burns was arrested and booked into custody at the Robert Presley Detention Center for the following charges: 

• Assault with the intent to commit rape
• Kidnapping with the intent to commit rape
• Robbery
• Assault with a deadly weapon
• Burglary
• Elder abuse

Anyone with additional information is encouraged to contact Deputy Rodriguez of the Jurupa Valley Station at (951) 955-2600.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

Search: Intent to Commit Rape

The post Assault with the Intent to Commit Rape appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

   A Riverside jury deliberated less than three hours before finding 30-year-old Deon Austin Welch guilty of 16 counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child with a sentence-enhancing great bodily injury allegation. 

Welch is facing 230 years to life in state prison when he’s sentenced by Superior Court Judge Bernard Schwartz on Aug. 9 at the Riverside Hall of Justice.

   The defendant is being held without bail at the Robert Presley Jail in Riverside. The defense rested Monday morning, after which closing arguments were made, and jurors were sent behind closed doors to weigh evidence from the two-week trial.

 According to the prosecution, Welch preyed upon the girl, identified only as “J.H.,” beginning in 2014 when she was 11 years old. The assaults continued, unabated, until the last half of 2016, Deputy District Attorney Sean Oswill wrote in a trial brief.

 Welch lived with the victim’s mother, Adrianna Dina Horowitz, who also had two young sons, and he began groping the girl when her mother was out of the apartment or asleep, Oswill said. The molestation escalated to forced rape and sodomy, according to the prosecutor.

 He said that in March 2014, J.H. revealed to a family friend that Welch had been assaulting her, leading to an investigation and interview with a county forensic examiner, who was informed by the victim that she had been “raped multiple times by the defendant,” according to the brief.

 However, a follow-up medical exam was cut short when Horowitz interfered with the process, and nothing conclusive could be determined, court papers state.

When Horowitz told Hemet police that Welch was no longer in the household and had relocated south of the border, the criminal investigation was shelved, Oswill said.

   In October 2014, a Department of Public Social Services caseworker interviewed J.H., who told the agent that the defendant had returned to the apartment, at which point the agent met with Welch and Horowitz, without notifying Hemet police, according to Oswill.

   “DPSS asked the defendant to sign off on a ‘safety plan’ they drafted, requesting he assist in the supervision of the children while the mother stabilized on her medication,” according to the brief. “The only option left for the victim was to learn to accept the situation and survive. There was no way out and no place to run.” 

 Oswill said caseworkers continued to visit the apartment over the next two years, and during that time, the victim denied she was being sexually abused. But in June 2016, the now-13-year-old girl was three months pregnant.

 Horowitz took the child to a pediatric medical clinic and insisted that her daughter “was not sexually active, but also wanted her placed on birth control,” according to the brief.

   When Horowitz asked clinical staff whether they could perform an abortion on J.H., police were notified, Oswill said. During a September 2016 interview with a Hemet police investigator, J.H. “disclosed being raped at least 90 times by the defendant,” the prosecutor wrote.

   On Nov. 4, 2016, the 13-year-old gave birth, and the baby’s DNA was tested, resulting in confirmation that Welch was the father, according to Oswill.

Horowitz later admitted to police that her daughter may have attempted to tell her that Welch was sexually assaulting her, but she either couldn’t recall or tried to “block it out,” according to a tape played in court by the prosecution. Horowitz pleaded guilty in June 2018 to child abuse, perjury, and accessory to a felony. She was sentenced to a year in jail and four years probation. 

   Welch was arrested in March 2017.

J.H. was appointed a guardian, who initiated a lawsuit against DPSS and the county on her behalf. That civil action led to a $10 million settlement for the victim last summer.

 The case attracted extensive public attention, pointing to significant failings by the county’s child welfare apparatus. DPSS Director Susan von Zabern resigned in September, and county CEO George Johnson ordered a comprehensive review of practices and procedures within the agency, which had come under scrutiny previously for other well-publicized incidents.

The post Man Convicted of Repeatedly Raping Girl Whose Case Cost County Millions appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.