Best printers for Home

Best Mixer Grinder

Best wired Earphones

Best 43 Inch TV in India

Best Wi Fi Routers

Best Home Theatre in India

Smart Watch under 5000

Best Laptops for Education

Best Laptop for Students

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Trump's lawyers will fight his 2023 sexual abuse and defamation verdict in Manhattan on Friday.</li><li>They say jurors wrongly heard other accusers, an appeal strategy that worked for Harvey Weinstein.</li></ul>Donald Trump is dispatching a lawyer to yet another courtroom Friday, when he'll try to overturn the Manhattan civil case that concluded the former president is a rapist.The oral arguments will have a distinct, Harvey Weinstein-esque ring to them, judging from the court filings.As the presidential election nears, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-legal-fees-pac-donor-money-personal-cases-2024-2">Trump's legal team</a> has been rushing to erase the Republican candidate's rap sheet and tidy up his lawsuit losses.On Friday, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-trump-immunity-case-january-6-2024-4">lawyer D. John Sauer</a> is scheduled to be in a federal appellate courtroom in Manhattan, where he'll fight the 2023 jury verdict that found the former president <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-liable-rape-e-jean-carroll-jury-verdict-2023-5">liable for defaming and sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll</a>. The judge who oversaw the trial later concluded that "<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-rape-e-jean-carroll-sexual-abuse-jury-judge-2023-7">Trump 'raped' her</a> as many people commonly understand the word 'rape.'"Before a three-judge panel for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Sauer is set to argue that the jury in Carroll's trial should never have heard evidence of other alleged sexual assaults.That evidence included the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/e-jean-carroll-rape-trial-access-hollywood-grabs-trump-back-2023-5">"Access Hollywood" "grab 'em" tape</a>, and testimony by two women who told the jury Trump sexually attacked them, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jessica-leeds-testifies-e-jean-carroll-trial-trump-sexual-assault-2023-5">one on a plane</a> in the mid-70s and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-calls-e-jean-carroll-accusation-a-disgusting-story-2023-5">one at Mar-a-Lago</a> in 2005.It's a strategy that worked on appeal for Weinstein.In April, New York state's top court <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/harvey-weinstein-conviction-for-sex-crimes-overturned-2024-4">overturned Weinstein's 2020 Manhattan sex crimes conviction</a> in a 4-3 decision that found the trial judge improperly allowed testimony by three accusers who were not part of the indictment. (Weinstein remains jailed in New York pending a retrial; he is separately serving <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/harvey-weinstein-sentenced-16-years-prison-term-la-rape-conviction-2023-2">a 16-year sentence</a> from a rape conviction in Los Angeles, which he is also appealing.)But the lawyers who won Weinstein's appeal told Business Insider that what worked for their client probably won't work for Trump.That's because Weinstein's jury sat in a New York state criminal courtroom, where long-standing rules of evidence strictly limit so-called prior bad act evidence, the disgraced Hollywood mogul's lawyers noted.Federal court is a very different place, they said — where Trump will likely find the rules of evidence insurmountably stacked against him."It's not apples and apples," explained Barry Kamins, a Weinstein appellate attorney and former Brooklyn-based state Supreme Court justice.Federal trial rules allow evidence of other sexual assaults to be heard at civil sexual assault trials, and have since the mid-'90s, said Kamins, now at <a target="_blank" rel=" nofollow" href="https://aidalalaw.com/new-york-attorneys-barry-kamins/">Aidala, Bertuna &amp; Kamins.</a>"It's funny, but Trump would have been much better off in state court than in federal court, which may be why they brought the case there," Kamins said of Carroll's lawyers.The architect of the law Carroll used to bring a lawsuit against Trump agreed.Marci Hamilton, who runs the sexual abuse victim advocacy group Child USA and helped write the New York law, said civil cases allow presenting witnesses to "show a pattern.""That's basically what's happening — especially when you have a perpetrator with multiple alleged victims," she said. "That pattern makes a big difference in explaining to the jury exactly who this person was that was doing this and how they operated."<h2 id="a6030bb1-d60e-4cec-b214-cadb0df89332">Trump's lawyers are making the Weinstein argument</h2>The appeal is over the first of Carroll's two trials against Trump, in a case she brought under <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-adult-survivors-act-sexual-assault-trump-jean-carroll-2022-11">New York's Adult Survivors Act</a>.The law — passed in the wake of reports about Weinstein's sexual predation and the #MeToo movement — opened a one-year window where accusers could bring sexual misconduct lawsuits that would otherwise be barred by the statute of limitations.Carroll accused Trump of sexually abusing her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodmans department store dressing room. The trial included <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/e-jean-carroll-witness-stand-humor-trump-rape-trial-2023-5">searing testimony from Carroll herself</a>, as well as from two friends who testified that she contemporaneously told them Trump sexually assaulted her.US District Judge Lewis Kaplan also permitted testimony from Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff, whose claims were not part of the lawsuit.Leeds described being forcibly groped on a plane twenty years prior to when Trump was found to have sexually assaulted Carroll. Stoynoff, a journalist, described a similar attack during an interview at Mar-a-Lago. That attack happened in 2005, she testified, twenty years after the Carroll attack and around the time Trump bragged about grabbing women by the genitals on the "Access Hollywood" tape.<div type="image" title="E. Jean Carroll in sunglasses" height="2599" width="3466" msid="113101233" hostid="261" sizebytes="354408"></div>Similar testimony doomed the Weinstein case.New York state's top court ruled the prosecution's prior-bad-act witnesses — the trio who testified Weinstein sexually assaulted them but whose claims weren't part of the criminal indictment — should never have taken the stand.In Trump's appeal brief, his lawyers argue testimony from Leeds and Stoynoff and the "Access Hollywood" tape should have never been allowed in the trial, and they cite a federal rule that is similar to the state-level one that foiled the Weinstein prosecution.The jury particularly should have never heard highly prejudicial testimony from Leeds recalling that Trump told her, "You're that cunt from the airplane," and Stoynoff saying Trump insisted "we're going to have an affair," Blanche and Bove argue.Diane Kiesel, a New York Law School professor and former state trial judge, told Business Insider she believed the evidence met the criteria for being included in the trial. The "Access Hollywood" tape and testimony from Leeds and Stoynoff helped demonstrate Trump's "motive, intent, and opportunity" in his encounter with Carroll, as allowed under federal evidence rules, she said."The fact that you've got E. Jean Carroll saying, 'He did this to me in Bergdorf's.' And he says, 'You can do it at any time to women, they let you do it,'" she said. "And then two other women climb out of the woodwork from 50 years ago and said he did the exact same thing — to me, I think it goes straight to motive, intent."Kaplan, the judge, wrote in his ruling that the evidence was allowed in the trial under different federal rules of procedure as well. Those include rules that allow for testimony about "similar acts" in sexual assault cases."As their testimony shows, Trump engaged in a pattern of abruptly lunging at a woman in a semi-public place, pressing his body against her, kissing her, and sexually touching her without consent, and later categorically denying the allegations and declaring that the accuser was too unattractive for him to have assaulted her," Carroll's lawyers wrote in a brief.<h2 id="9d2a4051-f3b3-4d91-a8e8-951d44875e33">Civil cases like Carroll's have different standards</h2>Friday's courtroom battle will feature Carroll's lawyer <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/carroll-lawyer-threatens-sanctions-trump-alina-habba-judge-mentor-2024-1">Roberta Kaplan</a>, who oversaw the two verdicts in favor of Carroll. In the May 2023 verdict, the jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation and awarded Carroll $5 million in damages. In <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/e-jean-carroll-trump-trial-defamation-rape-sexual-abuse-2024-1">the second trial, earlier this year</a>, a separate jury said <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-trial-verdict-e-jean-carroll-defamation-damages-2024-1">Trump owed Carroll an additional $83 million</a> in defamation damages.Kaplan (who is not related to the trial judge) will face off against Sauer, who recently won a resounding victory for Trump before the US Supreme Court, which <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-trump-immunity-january-6-election-ruling-decision-2024-5">recognized sweeping presidential immunity</a> in the criminal election interference case against him.<div type="image" title="donald trump e jean carroll walking out court" height="2268" width="3024" msid="113101230" hostid="261" sizebytes="1216306"></div>Trump's best chance in Friday's appeal may be to continue to argue that the two other accusers who testified, Leeds and Stroynoff, described assaults that were far too distant in time from Carroll's to have been relevant, said Weinstein attorney Arthur Aidala.While federal rules of evidence for civil sexual assault trials are far more expansive, a judge still can't go too far, he said."It has to be reasonable, and the appellate court can take into consideration the distance in time between the accounts of the plaintiff and these 'propensity' witnesses," he said.Crucially, the jury in Carroll's case didn't need to reach their conclusion that Trump sexually abused Carroll "beyond a reasonable doubt" — the standard in criminal trials.Instead, they needed to find it was "more probable than not" that Trump sexually assaulted Carroll, a standard far more common in civil cases.Even if the appeals court finds that some of the trial testimony shouldn't have reached the jury's ear, the standard gives some room to allow the verdict to be upheld anyway, according to Hamilton, the architect of the Adult Survivors Act."It's not unusual that in a civil case, you'll have the defendants try arguments from the criminal law to try to strengthen their arguments," she said. "But in the end, it's just apples to oranges. They're not the same thing."

Trump will mimic Harvey Weinstein's successful appeal to fight his own sexual assault verdict Friday. It won't be as easy.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The FBI is looking into sexual assault accusations against brothers Tal, Alon, and Oren Alexander.</li><li>FBI agents are looking into accusations that span two decades, The Wall Street Journal reported.</li></ul>Famous <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/most-expensive-housing-markets-in-the-us-2016-9">luxury real estate</a> brothers well-known in New York and Miami are facing an FBI probe following multiple accusations of sexual assault, The Wall Street Journal reported.Women who say they've been assaulted by real estate brothers <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tal-alexander-stepping-down-official-partners-real-estate-brokerage-2024-6">Tal and Oren Alexander</a>, along with their brother Alon, have spoken to FBI agents in the past few weeks, the Journal reported, citing a document and people familiar with the matter. The Journal reported that the agents are investigating accusations from the Alexanders' high school years and the two decades since.Attorneys for the brothers have denied the multiple accusations of sexual assault.In a statement to the Journal, a lawyer for Oren and Alon said that they were "unaware of any basis for an FBI inquiry into our clients' conduct. A lawyer for Tal told Business Insider that they "expect that anyone who investigates these matters will determine what we have— that Tal has done nothing wrong."Attorneys for Oren and Alon did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI. The FBI declined to confirm or deny the probe's existence to Business Insider.All three <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tal-alexander-accused-rape-woman-with-alon-in-2012-2024-6">Alexander brothers</a> have been accused of sexual assault over the past few months in civil lawsuits.A June lawsuit filed by a woman named Angelica Parker claims that Tal and Alon raped her at a Manhattan apartment in 2012 while Oren watched. In March, two women filed civil lawsuits accusing Alon and Oren of rape.The lawsuits were filed under New York's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-adult-survivors-act-sexual-assault-trump-jean-carroll-2022-11">Adult Survivor's Act</a>, which allows people to sue for sexual assault after the statute of limitations has passed.Evan Torgan, who represents the two women in the March lawsuit, told the Journal that two dozen other women approached him with accusations of assault after they filed the suit.Torgan did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI. An attorney for Parker declined to comment.Five more women also came forward and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/luxury-real-estate-world-rocked-by-rape-allegations-against-star-broker-db3feb17">told the Journal</a> that they were sexually assaulted by Oren Alexander.All three brothers have denied all claims made against them.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sales-alexander-team-real-estate-agents-douglas-eliman-new-york-2021-6">Oren and Tal</a> are real estate agents connected to some of the country's most expensive sales — including a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-240-million-condo-sale-that-made-tal-oren-alexander-2023-6">$240 million New York apartment</a> sold to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ken-griffin-miami-citadel-office-report-2024-6">Ken Griffin</a> that holds the record for the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/most-expensive-homes-sold-in-us-over-past-decade-2019-11">most expensive home</a> ever sold in the US. The brothers also cofounded the luxury real-estate brokerage Official.Alon is an executive at his family's private security firm, Kent Security.

Multimillionaire real estate brothers facing sexual assault accusations are now the focus of an FBI probe

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A former SAP account manager is breaking her NDA to speak out about a workplace sexual assault.</li><li>Nondisclosure agreements are often used to silence employees following claims of workplace abuse.</li></ul>By March of 2020, Ashley Kostial thought she'd been through the worst of it. She'd worked through months of intensive treatment for post-traumatic stress and was focused on managing her mental health and landing a new job.It had been nearly a year since Kostial reported being raped by a colleague during a work trip for a subsidiary of the global enterprise software firm, SAP. She'd met him for the first time in May 2019, when she was an account manager, as they prepared for a sales meeting in Plano, Texas. Afterward, they got drinks at the Marriott hotel bar. The last thing Kostial remembered from that night, she later told a police detective, was getting into the elevator with him.Her account of what happened next is based on interviews, a forensic exam, and a police report.The next morning, Kostial woke up in a panic, fearing she'd missed her flight, only to find scratches on her body and her bra and underwear ripped. Disoriented, she walked into the bathroom and saw her colleague's credit card on the white shag carpet. She looked at her phone and realized that around 2 a.m., she'd called her then-girlfriend repeatedly, in what dawned on her were frantic cries for help.Only later, after rushing to the airport, did another memory come back, she told police: her colleague on top of her on the hotel bed.Surveillance footage showed her exiting the hotel elevator with her colleague that night; a rape exam conducted after she flew back home documented bruising on her shoulder, arm, and thigh, and abrasions on her pelvis.Kostial recounted what she could piece together about that night to police in Plano, where the incident took place, and in Phoenix, where she lived. She cooperated with an HR investigation by SAP. All that was left was to sit through a grueling all-day mediation to reach a settlement agreement that would both end her employment with Ariba, the SAP subsidiary, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-tech-workers-nda-culture-silence-2021-7?r=tsr">gag her from ever speaking about</a> the most traumatic day of her life.That's when the men with cameras started showing up. Men, parked outside of her house, who she came to suspect were representatives of her employer-sponsored disability insurance provider, Aetna.Unable to work and consumed by her recovery, Kostial had filed for long-term disability care as she grappled with symptoms of PTSD that her psychologist attributed to the sexual assault. In a letter to Aetna, her psychologist had written that Kostial was experiencing insomnia, depression, emotional turmoil, dissociation, and intrusive thoughts, and she had been unable to return to work "due to clinically significant symptoms and major impairment to occupational and social functioning."Aetna denied her claim.It was in March 2020, after Kostial fought back, appealing Aetna's decision, that the men showed up. Kostial would spot them, or her security camera would, so often that she began to wonder whether she could take her dog for a walk without being followed. Her attorney, Brad Schleier, would later tell her it wasn't unusual for insurance companies to monitor people appealing denials. (Schleier declined to comment.)"It was harder than the initial assault," Kostial said of being stalked. She started carrying a knife.The men only disappeared after Aetna denied her appeal. In a lengthy phone call with Aetna, her psychologist described the details of her assault and the array of trauma symptoms that still persisted. But Aetna's representative was not swayed."Psychological complaints themselves are not sufficient in determining functional impairment," she wrote. A week later, in April 2020, Aetna issued its formal denial.Kostial turned to an option of last resort, hiring Schleier to file a lawsuit alleging she'd been wrongfully denied coverage.By the time Schleier called her with Aetna's settlement offer, in June 2021, she hadn't received a paycheck from SAP in almost two years. She was exhausted and broke, facing mounting medical bills. The offer, after attorney's fees, amounted to just a few months of her old salary — and it came with another non-disclosure agreement. Read more:<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-tech-workers-nda-culture-silence-2021-7?r=tsr">How tech giants use NDAs to create a culture of silence in Silicon Valley</a><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-sec-response-under-scrutiny-after-whistleblower-comes-forward">Apple agrees to "make improvements" to its NDAs after whistleblower comes forward</a><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/six-things-nda-contract-look-for-tech-job-2021-7">These are the 6 most important things to watch out for when you sign an NDA</a><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-paid-250000-to-a-flight-attendant-who-accused-elon-musk-of-sexual-misconduct-2022-5">A SpaceX flight attendant said Elon Musk exposed himself and propositioned her for sex. The company paid $250,000 for her silence.</a> Like so many in her situation, Kostial took the money and signed.The pair of NDAs weighed heavily on her. Her agreement with SAP specified damages of up to $20,000 "for each occurrence of a breach of this confidentiality provision," a terrifying prospect while she was out of work. The NDA with Aetna allowed the insurer to claw back the settlement money she needed to pay her mortgage, and it didn't cap the amount of additional damages the firm could seek if she broke it."It feels like you're wearing this bomb that's strapped to you, which could detonate at any time if you speak up," she said.<h2 id="fc6197bc-a2e3-4f69-a6a4-835265ec33ad">An effort to hide insurance settlements</h2>NDAs have become ubiquitous in the workplace. The secrecy pacts, originally designed to protect sensitive intellectual property from being shared, are also used by companies to silence employees following allegations of sexual harassment, racial discrimination, and other workplace misconduct.When Kostial entered into one with Aetna, she became one of an untold number of Americans who have agreed to NDAs in another context altogether: to hide settlement terms with an insurance provider in the wake of a coverage dispute.The Aetna NDA only silenced her about the terms of her settlement, not the sexual assault. She remembers being stunned that she would have to sign a second NDA.<div type="image" title="Settlement agreement" height="2668" width="4000" msid="111258868" hostid="261" sizebytes="127992"></div>Initially, Kostial planned to return to her job at SAP once she was cleared to work again. Before the assault, she had loved working for the company, she said, and envisioned a long career with the firm. But then SAP's HR officer alerted Kostial to the results of the firm's investigation. SAP found that her colleague's conduct was "contrary" to company policy and that he "exhibited poor judgment," an email message shows, yet he would be allowed to continue working for SAP."That's when I knew that I couldn't work there anymore," Kostial said.SAP and Aetna, through spokespeople, declined to comment on Kostial's case or answer questions about their use of NDAs, such as whether they remain standard practice today.BI <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-tech-workers-nda-culture-silence-2021-7?r=tsr">documented the spread of these enforced secrecy pacts</a> in the tech industry in 2021, finding that tech companies both large and small routinely deploy NDAs in all sorts of situations, from protecting intellectual property to restricting discussion of workplace misconduct. BI reported Kostial's story then but referred to her by a pseudonym, Kira. She's decided to risk coming forward now because she views the NDAs she signed as unjust — and would like to see the use of NDAs ended for other victims of sexual assault.At BI's request, seven employment attorneys and scholars reviewed Kostial's settlement with Aetna. Several said that while it's common for health insurance firms to include NDAs in settlement agreements as a way to maintain negotiating leverage with other insured members, there is no way to know exactly how many are reached. That's because most NDAs are subject to mandatory arbitration, a private process that creates minimal publicly available records."Disability insurance has a lot of leverage in these situations. The insured typically doesn't have any income," said Nina Wasow, an attorney in Berkeley, California, who often represents clients with disability claims. "It's in their best interest not to have people be well-informed about what the marketplace is for the disability settlements. They don't want people talking about how crappy they are."Collecting data on the prevalence of NDAs is nearly impossible, legal experts said, as companies can use multiple statutes to go after breaches and the vast majority of individuals who sign such agreements never disclose them publicly.<h2 id="031c1406-731b-439f-b904-72fab3adcf31">A lack of data on the spread of NDAs</h2>Even as NDAs have spread into more and more sectors, how often they're enforced has remained a mystery. In 2022, Congress passed the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ224/PLAW-117publ224.pdf">Speak Out Act</a>, which bans the use of NDAs to gag victims of sexual abuse that were signed before the dispute arises, typically in employment agreements completed on the first day of an employee's new job. But the law doesn't prevent NDAs in settlements reached after the fact, such as the one Kostial signed.Judges in California and New York have historically refused to enforce NDAs, legal scholars said. New state laws in Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico and elsewhere have further limited their use in settlements where sexual harassment or discrimination in the workplace was alleged, based on where the employee lives. But Arizona, where Kostial was living at the time she was assaulted, doesn't prohibit NDAs in workplace settlements."Under some state laws, her employer would not be able to enforce an NDA against her for speaking out about this situation," said Jodi Short, a law professor at University of California College of the Law, San Francisco who has studied NDAs. "It seems odd that an insurer would be able to."While the National Labor Relations Board keeps statistics on complaints related to noncompete agreements, the agency doesn't track how often companies pursue employees for violating the terms of an NDA. In a sample of more than 100 state and federal court records containing the words "nondisclosure" and "sexual harassment" reviewed by BI, none had to do with the enforcement of NDAs.Several experts who study NDAs, including Evan Starr of the University of Maryland's business school, who co-authored a <a target="_blank" href="https://digital.sandiego.edu/law_fac_works/112/">2022 white paper </a>examining the spread of NDAs in the workplace, told BI that their primary purpose is to intimidate signatories from speaking publicly about something that could embarrass the company.Kostial experienced a form of this intimidation recently.Soon after BI sought comment on her case from Aetna, an email from Schleier, the lawyer who previously represented her, landed in her inbox. Aetna's attorneys "wanted me to contact you and remind you of the confidentiality obligation in the agreement," Schleier wrote. "Look forward to hearing back from you."<div type="image" title="A woman with long brown hair sits on a porch with her dog" height="2668" width="4000" msid="111258860" hostid="261" sizebytes="290176"></div>After Kostial settled her case against Aetna, she began to pick up the pieces of her life. She spent nearly a year applying for jobs and landed several first-round interviews. But she was often stymied during those conversations, she said, when questions would come up about her previous employer."I couldn't answer the questions," Kostial recalled. Anything she said, she feared, would risk breaking the terms of her first NDA. "SAP always loomed large in the back of my mind."Many other tech workers bound by NDAs <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-nondisclosure-agreements-silence-control-workers-silicon-valley-2021-7">told BI</a> that the agreements posed similar obstacles to a new job search.Eventually, in 2021, Kostial landed a job at a small Oakland-based software company working in data analytics, where she remained for nearly three years.She often finds herself thinking back to the chain of events that led her to this point. Especially galling was the wall of disbelief Kostial encountered, from HR officials to police.SAP's HR team seemingly gave credence to the claim by her alleged attacker that the two had consensual sex, ignoring Kostial's bruises and scrapes that were documented during her rape exam — and the fact that she is gay. In an email to Kostial, the detective assigned to her case from the Plano Police Department in Texas said of her alleged attacker, "I am not able to prove any part of his story that night was a lie." (No criminal charges were filed against Kostial's colleague and Plano police closed their investigation a month after the alleged assault.)Kostial has discussed her situation with Vincent White, a New York city-based lawyer who specializes in workplace NDAs and advises signatories on the risks associated with breaking them. Kostial said that whenever she has brought up wanting to speak out about her agreement, White has reminded her that doing so could entail "inflicting self-harm," whether by triggering attempts by SAP or Aetna to claw back her settlement monies or by effectively blacklisting herself from future work in the tech industry.Kostial's journey has led her to meet with lawmakers in Arizona and advocates in Illinois. She's participated in an <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cantbuymysilence.com/testimonies-1/story-5">international advocacy campaign</a>, Can't Buy My Silence, led by Zelda Perkins, a former assistant of Harvey Weinstein's, and legal scholar Julie Macfarlane, to bring awareness to how NDAs are used to silence victims of assault and harassment. She's also developing an app, called Face Uncomfortable, to help employees report instances of workplace misconduct and save documentation.Kostial recently left her software job to focus on preventing other workers from being silenced by the kinds of secrecy pacts that have shaped her life. Though she's long been engaged, the couple have put off marriage. Kostial is fearful that if they wed, her wife's finances could be affected if either SAP or Aetna pursues her for breaking her NDA.Whenever she's seized by anxiety, Kostial reminds herself of how hard she's fought to move past the sexual assault and why she's coming forward."There's nothing that could happen after this that would be worse than what I've already been through," she said. "I hope that if there's one person who needs to hear this, they will."Just two weeks ago, Kostial received another email from her former lawyer."Hey Ashley — Just following up," he wrote. He said he'd received another message from Aetna, reminding him about her NDA.Kostial never replied.

An SAP employee reported a workplace sexual assault. Now she's breaking her NDA.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>H&amp;M has scrapped a school uniform advert in Australia after complaints that it sexualized children.</li><li>The advert of two young girls was accompanied by text saying they could "make those heads turn."</li></ul>Swedish fast-fashion retailer H&amp;M has pulled a school uniform advert in Australia after being widely accused of sexualizing children.The advert shows two young girls in matching white shirts, dark gray pinafores, and pink rucksacks on board what appears to be a pink school bus. Text accompanying the advert, which appeared as sponsored posts on social media, read "Make those heads turn in H&amp;M's Back to School fashion.""What is your intention with this sponsored Facebook ad? Little schoolgirls generally don't want to 'turn heads,'" author and speaker Melinda Tankard Reist <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/MelTankardReist/status/1747866459836158415">posted on X</a>. "Why would you want to fuel the idea that little girls should draw attention to their looks, bodies and 'style'?"Users on X suggested that the girls' legs had been oiled for the photo and pointed out their sideways look at the camera. People criticized the way H&amp;M portrayed young girls in school uniform, calling the ad "creepy" and "disturbing.""Having been stalked in school uniform and developed fear of any public space for months afterwards I know how real dangers are," one person <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/rileypaige207/status/1747927901260198214">wrote</a>.H&amp;M said that the ad had been removed. "We are deeply sorry for the offense this has caused and will look into how we present campaigns going forward," it said in a <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/hm_custserv/status/1748283966707139022">post</a> on X.

H&M has pulled a school uniform ad over criticism that it sexualized young girls

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Three former students have filed suit, saying a SoCal school district failed to protect them from "rampant" sexual abuse.</li><li>The lawsuit comes after Business Insider revealed decades of sexual misconduct by educators at Rosemead High.</li></ul>A group of sexual abuse survivors have filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court, saying their high school district failed to protect them from predatory teachers for years.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24651161-sexual-abuse-survivor-lawsuit-filed-against-the-el-monte-union-high-school-district-may-2024">The lawsuit</a>, filed by three former students at Rosemead High, claims that district officials created a "toxic" culture on campus where "sexual abuse by educators is rampant." Administrators failed to properly supervise employees, the lawsuit claims, and repeatedly "ignored and concealed the sexual abuse of minor students."The plaintiffs in the suit, which cites Business Insider's investigation of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/40-years-of-sexual-misconduct-at-rosemead-california-high-school-2023-9">sexual misconduct at </a>the Southern California high school, include a pair of former students BI previously identified as L. and Clara. L. said she had a yearslong sexual relationship with her tennis coach Wing Chan while she was a student, while Clara said she was groped and sexually harassed by social science teacher Alex Rai for much of her senior year. A third woman, identified only as a Jane Doe, said she was sexually harassed and groped by her track coach, Eduardo Escobar, as a freshman.Escobar, who resigned in 2008 following <a target="_blank" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24651163-eduardo-escobar-rosemead-high-school-disciplinary-documents-released-by-the-emuhsd">a district investigation</a> of his conduct with multiple female students, denied sexually harassing and groping students but said "it was probably my fault that I didn't put enough distance between me and the athletes."The lawsuit follows the resignation of multiple Rosemead teachers and the launch of a criminal investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department."Our office has litigated against school districts for years. I've never seen another situation where, from top to bottom, the staff is trained in a way that violates the law," said attorney Michael Carrillo, who brought the case. "It's about protecting the interests of the school district over protecting children." In 2019, Carrillo secured a $5 million verdict against a teacher and the El Monte Union High School District (EMUHSD), which oversees Rosemead High, in a sexual misconduct case involving a teacher at another school.<div type="image" title="A leather Rosemead High diploma case rests against cement school steps." height="1496" width="1002" msid="109958086" hostid="261" sizebytes="181954"></div>District superintendent Edward Zuniga declined to comment. Chan, who for the past 15 years has worked at the LA County Probation Department, did not respond to requests for comment. Rai, who <a target="_blank" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24651173-alex-rai-rosemead-high-school-resignation-letter-october-2022-released-by-the-emuhsd">resigned in 2022</a> following <a target="_blank" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23972207-alex-rai-may-24-2022-notice-of-administrative-leave-from-rosemead-high-school">a district investigation</a> into his relationships with Clara and other female students, did not respond to requests for comment.Meanwhile, the district has opened an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct involving at least one current Rosemead High educator in the wake of BI's reporting. Special education teacher Edwin Reyes Villegas was put on leave in October, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24487885-edwin-villegas-notice-of-administrative-leave-from-rosemead-high-school-emuhsd-october-4-2023">documents show</a>; two people interviewed as part of the investigation said Villegas's relationship with a female student in 2022 was the focal point of the inquiry. Villegas did not respond to requests for comment.Former Rosemead choir director David Pitts was also <a target="_blank" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24651162-notice-of-administrative-leave-for-gabrielino-high-schools-david-pitts-october-2023">placed on leave</a> in October from his job at nearby Gabrielino High School, after parents and community members complained to administrators about his conduct with students. As BI <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/40-years-of-sexual-misconduct-at-rosemead-california-high-school-2023-9">reported</a>, Pitts established a relationship with his former piano accompanist, Cindy, that included shoulder massages and intimate conversations when she was a student and became sexual soon after she graduated.Gabrielino's head of human resources, Ross Perry, said he expected the investigation of Pitts to conclude "before the end of the school year," but declined to answer other questions. Pitts didn't respond to requests for comment.A group of current Rosemead students, meanwhile, have met regularly with administrators for the past 18 months to discuss an anti-grooming curriculum they hope will be implemented districtwide. The group has dubbed itself the Ceanothus Council Against Child Grooming, named after a native California shrub known for its resilience. Students didn't hide their frustration during an emotional school board meeting in October, when an alum, Kristy, spoke publicly for the first time <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/40-years-of-sexual-misconduct-at-rosemead-california-high-school-2023-9">about her experience</a> having a sexual relationship with a teacher.BI is only identifying Cindy and Kristy by their first names."The district is only willing to do as much as it takes to postulate the idea of transparency or reform," said Sofia Hernandez, the school board's student representative, who is a member of the Ceanothus group. "We ask EMUHSD to make a clear and explicit effort towards transparency, towards actual efforts to educate teachers and students. We ask for the bare minimum."<h2 id="60700171-33dd-48f5-b0d6-50e3ef037d9f">Ripple effects across the nation</h2>BI's coverage of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sexual-abuse-schools-inappropriate-student-teacher-relationship-predators-2023-12">sexual abuse in schools</a> has prompted many other former students to take action across the country.In Loudoun County, Virginia, an alum of Broad Run High School, who asked to go by their middle name, Lee, had spent the decade since they graduated in 2012 grappling with how to come forward about their experience being sexually abused.Lee said they were groomed by their marching band instructor, William Riddell, for a sexual relationship that began during their junior year. Riddell would drive Lee to his parents' house, where he used the basement to give private music lessons. But it wasn't until another of Riddell's students died by suicide in 2012 that Lee began to question the relationship. A school staffer later told Lee that investigators had discovered inappropriate text messages Riddell sent their classmate. "That's when everything shattered for me," Lee said. "I realized that I was not special."After speaking to BI about their experience, Lee couldn't shake the feeling that something needed to be done. They connected with others who had witnessed Riddell's behavior with teenagers and spoke with a Fairfax County Police detective. Then things began to snowball.In February, Lee met with a prosecutor from the Virginia Attorney's General office, a meeting invitation shows. The prosecutor shared that they'd executed a search warrant at Riddell's home and discovered extensive child pornography, Lee recalled, including a digital folder with Lee's name on it.On March 30, Riddell was arrested on multiple counts of reproduction and possession of child pornography; Riddell was released on bond earlier this week and a preliminary hearing in his case is scheduled for July.Spokespeople for Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and the Fairfax County Police Department declined to comment on the case, citing the ongoing investigation. Neither Riddell nor his attorney responded to requests for comment."Part of me feels validated. It's something I've been saying for 10 years," Lee said. "But if this had been addressed 10 years ago, maybe others wouldn't have been hurt."In St. Louis County, Missouri, a former student of journalism teacher Erin Sucher O'Grady, who asked to go by only an initial, B., decided to report the instructor's sexual relationship with another student after seeing a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/insider-seeks-tips-on-sexual-abuse-by-high-school-teachers-2022-9">BI call-out</a> seeking such tips. She reported to district officials that her classmate had been groomed for sex by Sucher O'Grady, an award winning teacher at Clayton High School, when she was a student in the early 2010s. The relationship had gnawed at B. for years.In late 2022, district officials opened an investigation of Sucher O'Grady, documents show. In January 2023, assistant superintendent Tony Arnold confirmed that the district had substantiated multiple policy violations by the teacher, including her communications with students. Sucher O'Grady resigned as part of a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24485372-erin-sucher-ogrady-separation-agreement-with-the-school-district-of-clayton-missouri">separation agreement</a> and admitted no liability; she declined to discuss the district's investigation.B. said that BI's reporting on sexual abuse in public schools was "instrumental to me deciding that something should be done" about her former teacher.Back in Southern California, when another former high school student, who asked to go by only an initial, K., got in touch with BI in February of last year, she was wracked by doubt. After reading about how a Rosemead High journalism teacher, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rosemead-high-eric-burgess-sexual-misconduct-investigation">Eric Burgess, had groomed multiple teenage girls for sex</a>, she'd begun to unpack her relationship with her Laguna Beach High School English teacher David Brobeck, which she said became sexual after she graduated in the late 2010s."I had a big crush on him, and I think other girls did, too," K. explained. "I'd just say he was handsome, and everyone thought it was funny."K. recalled being drawn to Brobeck's charm and reputation as one of the school's most popular teachers. After graduation, K. would return to the school to run at the track. One day, Brobeck requested that she add him on Instagram. Their conversations quickly became sexual, K. said, and Brobeck confided that he'd always liked her as a student. Then he kissed her.In August 2023, K. reported the relationship to the Laguna Beach Unified School District, which hired the private investigative firm Nicole Miller and Associates — the same firm that investigated Burgess at Rosemead in 2019 — to investigate Brobeck. Brobeck resigned in March of this year and will receive $80,000 in severance per the terms of his <a target="_blank" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24494311-david-brobeck-laguna-beach-resignation-agreement-following-investigation-of-sexual-misconduct-with-a-student">confidential agreement with the district</a>, in which he admitted no wrongdoing; Brobeck declined to comment for this story.At least one educator named in BI's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sexual-abuse-schools-inappropriate-student-teacher-relationship-predators-2023-12">nationwide investigation of sexual misconduct in schools</a> is no longer around students. After leaving a job as PE teacher in the Lake Washington School District outside of Seattle, Scott Nelson was coaching basketball in the Issaquah school district. He'd resigned from the Lake Washington district in early 2023 following a district investigation that had identified a "pattern of inappropriate behavior" with students.After BI's story appeared in December, Issaquah officials read his <a target="_blank" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24233982-lake-washington-school-district-file-on-sexual-misconduct-investigations-of-teacher-scott-nelson">disciplinary file</a> from Lake Washington for the first time. Nelson told BI he was soon informed that he would not be coaching again this year.An Issaquah school district spokesperson said Nelson was a volunteer coach and that he did not disclose any of the allegations in his personnel file when he applied to work there. "We chose to rescind the opportunity to volunteer as a result of the failure to disclose the investigation," the spokesperson said.Nelson described the documents as a "total misrepresentation of my career" and denied sexually harassing students. He said he is appealing the decision and wants to continue coaching."The HR person said it was too risky, so we don't want you to coach anymore," he said. "I told her, 'Look, if I had issues like this, do you really think I'd get involved in a school again?'"<h2 id="9bea2d1a-efa4-47a6-963e-1c738794d5a9">Lax federal oversight</h2>BI's reporting identified several states that lack the so-called "Pass the Trash" laws that the federal Department of Education has called on them to implement. In 16 states, school districts require only a criminal background check, with no further backgrounding of past misconduct allegations, which often do not generate legal proceedings.Yet the federal Department of Education appears to have no plans to change the status quo. A department spokesperson said the federal law forbidding school employees from providing a recommendation for a teacher they have probable cause to believe engaged in sexual misconduct with a student "prohibits the Department from mandating, directing, or controlling specific state or local measures responsive to this provision."After initially agreeing to discuss BI's findings, the spokesperson declined to make anyone available for an interview. In a written statement, the spokesperson said, "Education leaders have a responsibility for ensuring students' well-being in schools and that parents feel confident that their child is safe in school. Failing to remove known predators from schools is not only unacceptable, it is against the law."Matt Drange graduated from Rosemead High in 2007. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Special Victims Bureau is investigating sexual abuse at Rosemead High. The investigators can be reached through the Temple City station or by calling <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="c-link">(562) 946-7960</a>.

Former students say a California school district 'ignored and concealed' sexual abuse 

An epidemic of sexual abuse in schools

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A 13-year-old girl was sexually assaulted on a Delta Air Lines flight in 2022.</li><li>Passenger Brian Patrick Durning was sentenced to five years in prison in late September. </li></ul>Delta Air Lines is being sued by the family of a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-flight-assault-man-guilty-13-year-old-prison-plane-2023-9">13-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted on a flight</a>.The complaint, which Business Insider has seen, was filed in a California district court last Monday.Brian Patrick Durning was sentenced to five years in prison last September after he was found guilty on three counts related to the 2022 incident.The family's lawsuit accuses <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-pilot-pleaded-guilty-turning-up-drunk-flight-edinburgh-2024-3">Delta</a> of gross negligence. It says the airline "enabled" the assault by allowing a "visibly intoxicated" Durning to board the flight and continuing to serve him alcohol throughout.During the red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Orlando, the victim, known as ZB, was seated separate from her family, in a middle seat two rows behind them, the suit says.It adds that she has selective mutism, which made her unable to call for help during the assault.The assault took place while the lights were dimmed and most passengers were sleeping. When a woman sat on the other side of ZB woke up, she told Durning to stop and alerted a flight attendant, the complaint says.It alleges that the cabin crew did not restrain Durning but moved him to an aisle seat two rows ahead, from where he "continued to harass" the girl.The complaint adds that Durning roamed around the cabin and grabbed his genitals while looking at the plaintiffs."After the flight landed, Delta did not restrain Durning or arrange for law enforcement to escort him off the plane," the lawsuit says.The girl, now aged 16, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and has recurring nightmares about the incident, it adds.A Delta representative said: "While Delta will decline to comment on pending litigation, we have zero tolerance for unlawful behavior on flights and in airports and work with law enforcement to that end."

A family is suing Delta Air Lines after a 13-year-old girl was sexually assaulted when she was separated from her parents on board

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A Taylor Swift fan is suing Delta Air Lines after she was sexually assaulted on a flight.</li><li>The lawsuit was also filed against the perpetrator, who was a Delta mechanic.</li></ul>A woman is suing Delta Air Lines after she was sexually assaulted on a flight last year.The woman was flying from Phoenix to Seattle on her way back from attending a Taylor Swift concert when the incident occurred, according to a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mark-lindquist-law-victim-sues-for-sexual-assault-on-plane-302102872.html">press release</a> from Mark Lindquist Law, an aviation and personal injury firm representing the victim.The lawsuit was filed in King County, Washington, against Delta and the perpetrator, who was a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.newsweek.com/woman-sues-delta-airlines-sexually-assaulted-flight-1884969">Delta mechanic</a> at the time of the incident, Newsweek reported.Duane Brick, 53, pleaded guilty to abusive sexual contact in March, admitting that during the flight, he had taken the victim's hand and placed it on his crotch, per the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/pr/separate-cases-two-defendants-plead-guilty-assaults-aircraft">US Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington</a>.He also reached under her shirt and groped her breast while she appeared to be asleep, per the Attorney's Office statement. Brick now faces up to two years in prison.The new lawsuit says that "as a common carrier, Delta owes the highest duty of care and has a legal duty to provide airline passengers, including the Plaintiff, with a safe flight that is free from unauthorized and abusive sexual contact from other passengers, including from Delta's own employees."It claims that the flight crew "overserved alcohol to Mr. Brick, failed to adequately train employees on how to prevent and address sexual assaults, and failed to properly monitor the cabin and protect passengers."It adds that the victim and a witness reported the incident to staff, but Brick was allowed to remain in his seat for another 15 minutes."Everyone should feel safe to fall asleep on a plane without the risk of being groped and sexually assaulted," Lindquist, the victim's attorney, said."Airlines can and should do more to stop these gross violations," he added.Business Insider has reached out to Delta for comment.Delta is facing another lawsuit from the family of a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-air-lines-sued-after-13-year-old-girl-sexually-assaulted-2024-3">13-year-old girl who was also sexually assaulted</a> on a flight.The suit claimed Delta staff "enabled" the assault by allowing the "visibly intoxicated" offender, Brian Patrick Durning, to board the flight and serving him alcohol throughout.A Delta spokesperson said the company would not comment on pending litigation" but had "zero tolerance for unlawful behavior on flights and in airports."<h2>Sexual assaults on planes are increasing in the US</h2><div type="image" title="Woman wearing hat and carrying backpack and suitcase down moving walkway at airport." height="1414" width="2120" msid="108919585" hostid="261" sizebytes="188118"></div>US Attorney Tessa Gorman said that "the Western District of Washington continues to see an alarming increase in sexual abuse cases aboard aircraft.""Last August we emphasized that we have zero tolerance for such assaults. Sadly, we continue to learn of new allegations and are investigating and charging those cases," she added.Indeed, The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/pr/separate-cases-two-defendants-plead-guilty-assaults-aircraft">US Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington</a> highlighted two other incidents in March in its jurisdiction.A 38-year-old Indian citizen was arraigned on a charge of abusive sexual contact for an assault on a teen sitting near him on an Emirates flight to Seattle, it said.Meanwhile, Jack Roberson, 69, entered a plea of guilty to simple assault for his contact with a 15-year-old seated next to him on a July 2023 flight from Atlanta to Seattle. Roberson faces up to a year in prison when sentenced on June 5, 2024, said the US Attorney's Office on March 8.Sexual assaults on aircraft are also increasing nationally, with the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/pr/federal-prosecutors-fbi-and-port-seattle-detail-disturbing-increase-sexual-assaults#:~:text=In%202018%2C%20the%20FBI%20investigated,first%20half%20of%20the%20year.">FBI</a> last year noting a "disturbing increase" in incidents.It said that in the first half of 2023, 62 cases were under investigation, up from 27 in the whole of 2018.

Taylor Swift fan sues Delta Air Lines after being sexually assaulted by mechanic on flight

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The California attorney general is investigating the El Monte Union High School District in Southern California.</li><li>The action follows Business Insider's reporting on a pattern of sexual misconduct at one district school, Rosemead High.</li></ul>The California attorney general is investigating a Southern California school district over whether it properly handled claims of educator sexual abuse and misconduct, records reviewed by Business Insider show.BI was the first to obtain evidence of a pattern of abuse at Rosemead High, overseen by the El Monte Union High School District, for a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/40-years-of-sexual-misconduct-at-rosemead-california-high-school-2023-9">series</a> revealing widespread complaints of sexual misconduct involving more than 20 different educators that persisted from the 1980s through last year. In several cases, employees who were alerted to inappropriate relationships between colleagues and students <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rosemead-high-eric-burgess-sexual-misconduct-investigation">failed to report them</a> to child protective services despite being mandated to do so under state law.A document reviewed by BI shows that the scope of the state's investigation includes district "policies relating to sexual abuse, assault, and harassment, as well as its compliance with laws and regulations concerning mandated reporting of suspected child abuse, sexual abuse, assault, harassment, and related hiring and training requirements." Multiple people familiar with the investigation, whom BI is not naming because they were directed not to discuss it, described the probe as focused in part on whether Rosemead administrators properly handled allegations of educator abuse that spanned decades.Investigating a local school district is a rare step for the top law enforcement office in the state. The only investigation the attorney general has made public related to sexual abuse by educators involved another Southern California district, Redlands Unified, which concluded earlier this year <a target="_blank" href="https://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/2024/05/29/california-ag-redlands-unified-systematically-violated-laws-protecting-kids-from-sexual-abuse/">when the office found</a> that the district had "systemically violated laws in place to protect against and address complaints related to sexual assault, harassment, and abuse." Redlands agreed to a <a target="_blank" href="https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/Notice%20of%20Entry%20of%20Judgment%20-%2024STCV13334.pdf">judgment</a> in June that subjects the district to five years of state oversight.People familiar with the El Monte investigation say it is being led by a division of the attorney general's office called the Bureau of Children's Justice, which was created in 2015 while Kamala Harris was attorney general. A spokesperson for Attorney General Rob Bonta declined to comment.BI previously identified numerous instances where tips from faculty, students, parents, and community members led to cursory investigations by Rosemead administrators and district officials, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rosemead-high-eric-burgess-sexual-misconduct-investigation">often concluding with</a> a teacher being allowed to return to the classroom — where, records show, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rosemead-high-secrecy-sexual-misconduct-flourished-2023-9">fresh abuse allegations emerged</a>. In a deposition last year, the district's head of human resources, Robin Torres, said of the district's investigation of one teacher's relationship with a student, "it appears that there wasn't follow-through." After reviewing district records related to sexual harassment complaints from multiple students about another teacher, Torres said, "I would have expected to find additional information on these allegations."Those familiar with the state's investigation said it is in the preliminary stages and remains ongoing. District Superintendent Edward Zuniga did not comment on the investigation. "The health and safety of our students is our top priority," he said by email. "El Monte Union does not tolerate any behavior that undermines those values, and we take swift and decisive action if we suspect student safety is being compromised in any way."<div type="image" title="A girl blurred in the foreground and in the background the façade of Rosemead High School." height="2000" width="3000" msid="114696601" hostid="261" sizebytes="188738"></div>In an August 21 letter that Zuniga sent to staff and the district's board of trustees, he disclosed the attorney general's investigation and instructed employees to refrain from discussing the case with anyone outside the district. The letter directs staff to preserve any documents "potentially relevant to the investigation," including memos, emails, voicemails, diaries, text messages, and meeting minutes.<h2 id="36842104-3beb-4e2e-b670-9f8a052feae5">Four lawsuits and counting</h2>In May, lawyer Michael Carrillo filed a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/los-angeles-lawsuit-alleges-rampant-sexual-misconduct-by-teachers-2024-5">lawsuit</a> on behalf of three former Rosemead High students who claim that school officials have created a "toxic" culture on campus where "sexual abuse by educators is rampant." During a press conference announcing the suit, Carrillo called on the Bureau of Children's Justice and the US Department of Education to investigate what he described as a "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25248678-bureau-of-childrens-justice-letter-may-2024">systemic failure</a>" to report child abuse within the district. Carrillo declined to comment.Three other lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by former educators have been filed against the El Monte district in recent months. In preliminary responses, lawyers for the district have denied most of the claims, while moving to have other claims dismissed on procedural grounds. In the first case filed by Carrillo, lawyers for the district argued that because the abuse allegations involved three different educators, the claims should be separated; a superior court judge ordered the plaintiffs to amend their complaint.In a case naming the district and special education teacher Edwin Reyes-Villegas, a former Rosemead student identified as a Jane Doe alleges that Reyes-Villegas sexually harassed and molested her when she was 17. According to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25232843-jane-doe-sexual-abuse-survivor-lawsuit-filed-against-el-monte-union-high-school-district-and-edwin-reyes-villegas">the complaint</a> — filed by lawyers at the Manly, Stewart &amp; Finaldi law firm, which also represented <a target="_blank" href="https://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/2024/04/25/federal-review-slams-redlands-unifieds-failures-to-address-sexual-abuse-complaints-by-students/">37 plaintiffs</a> who filed sexual abuse claims against the Redlands district, resulting in settlements totaling more than $45 million — the girl, who has autism, was "especially vulnerable" to abuse by Reyes-Villegas. The complaint says that abuse occurred during and after school and included the exchange of "sexually laden communications."Her attorney, Jenny Louro, said she intends to file subpoenas with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing to see whether the district notified state authorities after <a target="_blank" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24487885-edwin-villegas-notice-of-administrative-leave-from-rosemead-high-school-emuhsd-october-4-2023">placing Reyes Villegas on paid leave</a> a year ago. Reyes Villegas did not respond to requests for comment; records show his credential remains intact.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25232853-3-john-does-sexual-abuse-survivor-lawsuit-filed-against-el-monte-union-high-school-district-and-herbert-ortizmonroy-september-2024">In another case filed by the same firm</a>, a trio of former students who trained to join Rosemead High's championship wrestling team sued the El Monte district and their former coach, Herbert Ortiznmonroy. The lawsuit claims that Ortizmonroy repeatedly molested the boys, one of whom joined the Rosemead team, and that district administrators failed to supervise him and enabled "a culture of sexual abuse and harassment that discouraged reporting." Ortizmonroy, who also went by Coach Ortiz at Rosemead, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/former-wrestling-coach-sentenced-to-nearly-four-years-in-prison-on-sex-charges/">was sentenced to prison</a> in 2013 after he pleaded no contest to charges of oral copulation of a minor and committing a lewd act on a child; he remains incarcerated and did not respond to a request for comment.An <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25252893-july-2024-sexual-abuse-survivor-lawsuit-filed-by-9-jane-does-against-el-monte-union-high-school-district">additional case</a> that Carrillo <a target="_blank" href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-07-24/nine-former-rosemead-high-school-students-sue-allege-sexual-abuse">filed in June</a> on behalf of nine other plaintiffs, all Jane Does, alleges that "the improper handling of sexual abuse, molestation, and harassment allegations was, and is, a systemic issue" in the El Monte district.One former Rosemead teacher named in the case, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/40-years-of-sexual-misconduct-at-rosemead-california-high-school-2023-9">Alex Rai</a>, had his credential revoked over "misconduct" earlier this year, records show. Rai declined to comment.Meanwhile, Dominique Boubion, a lawyer who works with Carrillo, told BI that she is preparing to file another lawsuit against the El Monte district soon. That would bring the total number of active sexual abuse cases against the district to five.Matt Drange graduated from Rosemead High in 2007. Contact him securely <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/matt-drange">here</a>.Representatives of the California Bureau of Children's Justice can be reached <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://oag.ca.gov/contact/general-contact-form">here</a>.

California's attorney general is investigating a school district over its handling of Rosemead High sex abuse claims

<ul class="summary-list"><li>UK authorities are investigating the claim of a simulated gang rape of a teenager's VR avatar.</li><li>The teen told the police she was using a headset to play a VR video game when male players attacked her avatar.</li></ul>A teenager's claim that her avatar was gang-raped in an immersive virtual-reality game is being investigated by UK authorities, who are said to be considering the novel question of whether such an act in the metaverse can be criminally charged.The girl, who was identified only as being under the age of 16, was wearing a VR headset to play online when several male players attacked and "gang-raped" her digital avatar, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12917329/Police-launch-investigation-kind-virtual-rape-metaverse.html">British police sources told The Daily Mail</a>.Though she was not physically injured, the outlet reported the girl was deeply distraught after the incident, and a senior police officer familiar with the case told The Daily Mail she experienced trauma similar to a real-life assault.Donna Jones, the chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, confirmed to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67865327">The BBC</a> that the incident was first reported to authorities in 2023, triggering an investigation by police. Still, BBC could not verify which force launched the probe into the attack.No matter how the British police ultimately decide to handle the incident, law enforcement, and safety researchers say concerns over sexual harassment and violence in the metaverse need to be addressed as virtual and augmented reality technology becomes more convincing.VR goggles cover users' peripheral vision to create an immersive experience. Depending on user settings, players may experience vibrations in their handheld controls when experiencing in-game stimuli.While users who find their characters in precarious in-game situations involving other player-controlled characters may not be under direct physical threat, researchers say the immersive nature of a VR experience can heighten the emotional response to the content presented through goggles or sensations registered through haptic suits. These touch-sensitive full-body suits vibrate in response to virtual stimuli, reacting when users' characters bump into a wall or receive a punch, for example.<h2>In-game actions with a psychological toll</h2>"The boosters of this technology cannot have it both ways," Katherine Cross, who researches online harassment at the University of Washington, told Business Insider. "They cannot tout the realism of these virtual worlds and then deny or downplay that ugly things that happen in them have some of the unfortunate downstream effects of real behavior. If it's real enough to be marketable in a unique way, it's real enough for there to be social consequences and psychological consequences when something goes wrong."Cross said the core of VR technology relies on tricking a user's brain at a fundamental level into thinking that they're physically experiencing the things on screen by mimicking sensations experienced in the real world, like walking through space or swimming. That trickery of the brain is why, she says, users can sometimes feel a bit disoriented for a few seconds once they take the headset off and realize they're still standing in their living room or on a convention show floor."And what that means is that if something potentially traumatic happens in that space, you may immediately, or almost immediately, consciously realize it's just a game and this isn't really happening, but there's that moment where your lizard brain sort of has to catch up," Cross said. "So it's not unreasonable to think that that could lead to trauma."Despite safety researchers and law enforcement raising the issue of the potential real-world ramifications that VR attacks and harassment might have, the debate rages on in online forums like <a target="_blank" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/OculusQuest/comments/18wjpzn/virtual_reality_sexual_assault_a_discussion/">Reddit</a> about the impact of virtual sexual assault, with some users suggesting that claims of being traumatized by virtual attacks are minimizing "actual rape victims."On <a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/nypost/p/C1ngIOZIBSe/">Instagram,</a> in response to a New York Post article about the incident, users joked the assailants who harassed the girl online should be sent to "virtual jail." Others quipped they were waiting for justice after their character in "Call of Duty," a first-person shooter game, was killed."I know it is easy to dismiss this as being not real, but the whole point of these virtual environments is they are incredibly immersive," UK Home Secretary James Cleverly told <a target="_blank" href="https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/police-investigate-rape-metaverse/">LBC</a> about the incident. "And we're talking about a child here, and a child has gone through sexual trauma. It will have had a very significant psychological effect and we should be very, very careful about being dismissive of this."He added: "It's also worth realizing that somebody who is willing to put a child through a trauma like that digitally may well be someone that could go on to do terrible things in the physical realm."<h2>Sexual harassment on 'Horizon Worlds'</h2>Claims like the British girl's are not unheard of, with multiple accounts of virtual sexual harassment stemming from Meta's "Horizon Worlds" VR game — though it remains unclear if the incident took place inside Meta's game or another VR world.In 2022, a metaverse researcher who was studying user behavior on "Horizon Worlds" wrote that her avatar was <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/researcher-claims-her-avatar-was-raped-on-metas-metaverse-platform-2022-5">raped roughly an hour into her first session</a>."One part of my brain was like wtf is happening, the other part was like this isn't a real body, and another part was like, this is important research," the researcher said in her <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eko.org/images/Metaverse_report_May_2022.pdf">report</a> of the incident, adding that the users who assaulted her avatar had requested she disable her <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-metaverse-virtual-groping-personal-boundary-safety-bubble-horizons-venues-2022-2">4-foot safety bubble</a> before initiating the attack.Months earlier, in 2021, another metaverse researcher named Nina Jane Patel said in a post on Medium that three to four male-looking avatars had gang-raped her avatar within 60 seconds after she joined "<a target="_blank" href="https://ninajanepatel.medium.com/fiction-vs-non-fiction-d824c6edfbe2">Horizon Worlds</a>," calling the incident a surreal nightmare."The girl involved is very brave," Patel told BI. "Bringing this to the attention of the police would have been no easy task, and she is breaking ground with her actions. While we don't know where it will lead, it is a step in the right direction."In the summer of 2022, following early reports of sexual harassment and simulated assault on the platform, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/22/23274676/meta-horizon-worlds-mature-content-18-plus-tag">The Verge</a> reported that Meta had expanded the acceptable types of content in "Horizon Worlds" to include "mature" content for users over the age of 18, including depictions of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use as well as "near nudity, depictions of people in implied or suggestive positions, or an environment focused on activities that are overly suggestive."However, "nudity, depictions of people in explicit positions, or content or worlds that are sexually provocative or implied" remains prohibited in public spaces, according to Meta's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.meta.com/help/quest/articles/horizon/create-in-horizon-worlds/restrictions-to-worlds-in-horizon/">policy</a> on mature content on the site. In-game avatars are depicted from the torso up and, therefore, do not have legs or genitals that can be seen while playing. However, users can simulate sex with provocative positions of their avatars.Representatives for Meta did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. A spokesperson for the tech giant told<a target="_blank" href="https://metro.co.uk/2024/01/02/police-investigate-virtual-rape-a-child-metaverse-20050890/"> Metro</a>: "The kind of behavior described has no place on our platform, which is why for all users, we have an automatic protection called personal boundary, which keeps people you don't know a few feet away from you."<h2>Defining the new frontier of cybercrime</h2>While this isn't the first sexual attack that has been reported in virtual reality, it is thought to be the first time the UK authorities are investigating whether such an attack can be charged as a crime.Patel told BI that there's a need for specific legislation that addresses the unique nature of offenses in the metaverse, including defining and criminalizing acts of grooming, bullying, and harassment in virtual environments. She also advocates for creating stringent age verification systems, privacy controls, and parental supervision tools tailored to the metaverse's immersive experience without stifling the innovation and freedom that make the alternate reality world compelling."Protecting children in the Metaverse requires a multifaceted approach: psychologically informed safeguards to prevent trauma, robust legal frameworks to define and prosecute offenses, and international cooperation to effectively enforce these laws," Patel told BI. "This is a critical area that demands immediate attention to ensure the Metaverse is a safe and positive space for young users."Cross, however, isn't sure that one-size-fits-all legislation is the correct answer, saying that laws that criminalize behavior in the metaverse are treating a symptom, not the cause of the problem and that government enforcers "may not be able to provide the relief that people seek or deserve.""I think that, ultimately, it is on the platform holders to engage with the public more openly on these issues," Cross told BI. "And establish a serious package of reforms that they can bring forward to empower users to give them organizing tools, not just private moderation tools, but the ability to effectively police their own communities and work hand in hand with an expanded moderation and trust and safety team."Cross added that she believes a more effective arena of legislation would require large companies to have sufficiently staffed trust and safety teams working to address issues of virtual harassment, putting the onus back on the businesses rather than individuals to ensure the safety of online and virtual reality platforms.Though existing laws prohibit cybercrime, including fraud, harassment, and the distribution of child-sexual-abuse material online, an investigator familiar with the UK case told The Daily Mail they were unsure whether the teen's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-woman-claims-virtually-groped-metaverse-horizon-venues-2022-1">allegation</a> could be prosecuted under current law, saying "current legislation is not set up for this.""We are beginning to think about what is a crime in the metaverse and how we police it," Graeme Biggar, the director of the UK's National Crime Agency, told <a target="_blank" href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/rapes-murders-criminal-offences-virtual-reality-metaverse-nca-b1128084.html">The Evening Standard</a>.He added: "It's not dominating our thinking because there is plenty of real-world crime for us to be getting on with, but if you are in the metaverse wearing a haptic suit where you can sense what is happening to and then you are sexually assaulted, raped, or murdered, even if you are not wearing a haptic suit, is that OK?"

You Searched For "school girl sexual assault" and got 10 results

Trump will mimic Harvey Weinstein's successful appeal to fight his own sexual assault verdict Friday. It won't be as easy.

Laura Italiano,Jacob Shamsian

Multimillionaire real estate brothers facing sexual assault accusations are now the focus of an FBI probe

Hannah Getahun

An SAP employee reported a workplace sexual assault. Now she's breaking her NDA.

Matt Drange

H&M has pulled a school uniform ad over criticism that it sexualized young girls

Grace Dean

Former students say a California school district 'ignored and concealed' sexual abuse

Matt Drange

An epidemic of sexual abuse in schools

Matt Drange

A family is suing Delta Air Lines after a 13-year-old girl was sexually assaulted when she was separated from her parents on board

Pete Syme

Taylor Swift fan sues Delta Air Lines after being sexually assaulted by mechanic on flight

Nathan Rennolds

California's attorney general is investigating a school district over its handling of Rosemead High sex abuse claims

Matt Drange

A sexual assault in the metaverse has investigators questioning the future of virtual crime prosecution

Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides