Weinstein, Spacey, others in spotlight for sexual misconduct

This file photo taken on February 23, 2016 shows actor Kevin Spacey arriving for the season 4 premiere screening of the Netflix show "House of Cards" in Washington, DC. (AFP)
Updated 04 November 2017
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Weinstein, Spacey, others in spotlight for sexual misconduct

WASHINGTON: Accusations of sexual assault by movie producer Harvey Weinstein have opened the floodgates to a torrent of new allegations against powerful entertainment figures, and revived scrutiny of industry players previously accused of misconduct.
Here are the most prominent cases:

Dozens of women — 93 by one count — have accused the Oscar-winning producer Weinstein of offenses ranging from sexual harassment to rape dating back to the 1980s.
Weinstein, 65, and his brother Bob founded their movie production company Miramax in the 1970s and went on to produce a number of hit films including “Sex, Lies and Videotape,” “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love.”
The New York Times published the initial allegations of sexual misconduct against Weinstein on October 5 and The New Yorker followed up with additional accounts five days later.
Among the actresses who have stepped forward with accusations against Weinstein are stars such as Ashley Judd, Daryl Hannah, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie.
No criminal prosecutions have yet been launched against Weinstein but the authorities in New York, London and Los Angeles are reportedly looking into potential actions.
Weinstein was fired by Miramax and expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
His publicist has issued a statement saying “any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein.”

Cosby, the multiple Grammy- and Emmy-winning comedian, has been accused by dozens of women of drugging and raping them, with some accusations dating back to the 1960s.
Cosby, 80, made his name as a stand-up comedian before going on to appear in the hit television show “I Spy.”
In the 1980s, he appeared in the popular TV comedy “The Cosby Show,” which was seen as ground-breaking for its portrayal of a middle class African-American family.
Accusations of sexual assault against Cosby began to surface in 2014 and around 60 women have since come forward with allegations against him.
Only one criminal case has come to trial, however, because the statute of limitations for prosecution has run out on most of the others.
In that case, Andrea Constand accused Cosby of sexually assaulting her in January 2004 in his home in Cheltenham, a suburb of Philadelphia, Cosby’s hometown.
She said he gave her pills that left her semi-conscious then made sexual advances — a story not unlike those recounted by many of the other accusers.
The case ended in a mistrial in June but Cosby is to appear back in court in April 2018.

The director of “Bugsy” and other films has been accused of sexually harassing dozens of women, many of whom he would approach on the street and offer movie roles.
Thirty-eight women told the Los Angeles Times of awkward or humiliating encounters with Toback, including times when he rubbed his crotch against them or masturbated.
Since the report, dozens of other women have come forward with stories of similar behavior by the 72-year-old Toback, whose film credits also include “The Pick-up Artist” and “Two Girls and a Guy.”
Toback denied the allegations to the Times and claimed that because of poor health it was “biologically impossible” for him for the past 22 years to have committed the acts of which he is being accused.
Police in New York and Los Angeles said they were investigating multiple complaints against Toback following publication of the Los Angeles Times story.
The newspaper said that after its report it had received emails and phone calls from more than 200 additional women with stories about Toback.

Actresses Natasha Henstridge and Olivia Munn and four other women told the Los Angeles Times they had been the victims of sexual misconduct or harassment by Ratner, director of “Rush Hour” and “X-Men: The Last Stand.”
Ratner, 48, rejected the accusations and filed a defamation suit against a woman who separately made allegations against him in a Facebook post.
Henstridge told the Times she was a 19-year-old fashion model in New York in the early 1990s when Ratner, then a music video director in his early 20s, forced her to perform oral sex.
Henstridge said she was inspired to come forward by the women who reported sexual misconduct by Weinstein and Toback.
Munn, who has appeared in the HBO show “The Newsroom” and the movie “Magic Mike,” told the Times that Ratner had masturbated in front of her when she was an aspiring actress on the set of the movie “After the Sunset.”
Four other women also recounted stories to the newspaper about Ratner being sexually inappropriate or intimidating.
Ratner, through his attorney, Martin Singer, rejected the accounts.
“I have represented Mr. Ratner for two decades, and no woman has ever made a claim against him for sexual misconduct or sexual harassment,” Singer said.

“Star Trek: Discovery” actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey, a two-time Oscar winner, of making sexual advances toward him in 1986, when Rapp was 14 years old.
Since then, several other people have come forward with stories of sexual misconduct or harassment involving the 58-year-old actor.
They included eight people working on “House of Cards,” who told CNN that the set of the hit Netflix series became a “toxic” environment because of Spacey’s alleged behavior.
Netflix has suspended production of the show.
Following the accusation by Rapp, now 46, Spacey said he did not remember the encounter but that if he did behave as described he apologizes for “deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.”
Spacey, who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for “Usual Suspects” and one for Best Actor for “American Beauty,” also revealed he was gay.
British police have meanwhile opened an investigation into an allegation of sexual assault from a man in 2008, when Spacey was artistic director at the Old Vic theater.

One of the longest-running sexual assault cases in Hollywood involves the French-Polish director Polanski, who pleaded guilty in the United States in 1977 to statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl.
Polanski, whose films include “The Pianist” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” fled for France before sentencing and has been a fugitive from the US justice system ever since, despite repeated attempts to have him extradited.
Last month, Swiss prosecutors confirmed they were investigating new rape allegations against Polanski made by a woman who said he assaulted her at a resort in the Swiss Alps in 1972.
The new claims, which the 84-year-old Polanski has denied through his lawyer, bring to at least four the number of women who have publicly accused him of sexual assault.


After nearly 7 weeks and many rumors, Bolivia’s ex-leader reappears in his stronghold

Updated 20 February 2026
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After nearly 7 weeks and many rumors, Bolivia’s ex-leader reappears in his stronghold

  • Morales was Bolivia’s first Indigenous president who served from 2006 until his fraught 2019 ouster and subsequent self-exile
  • He dismissed rumors fueled by local politicians and fanned by social media that he would try to flee the country

LA PAZ: Bolivia’s long-serving socialist former leader, Evo Morales, reappeared Thursday in his political stronghold of the tropics after almost seven weeks of unexplained absence, endorsing candidates for upcoming regional elections and quieting rumors he had fled the country in the wake of the US seizure of his ally, Venezuela’s ex-President Nicolás Maduro.
The weeks of hand-wringing over Morales’ fate showed how little the Andean country knows about what’s happening in the remote Chapare region, where the former president has spent the past year evading an arrest warrant on human trafficking charges, and how vulnerable it is to fears about US President Donald Trump’s potential future foreign escapades.
The media outlet of Morales’ coca-growing union, Radio Kawsachun Coca, released footage of Morales smiling in dark sunglasses as he arrived via tractor at a stadium in the central Bolivian town of Chimoré to address his supporters.
Morales, Bolivia’s first Indigenous president who served from 2006 until his fraught 2019 ouster and subsequent self-exile, explained that he had come down with chikungunya, a mosquito-borne ailment with no treatment that causes fever and severe joint pain, and suffered complications that “caught me by surprise.”
“Take care of yourselves against chikungunya — it is serious,” the 66-year-old Morales said, appearing markedly more frail than in past appearances.
He dismissed rumors fueled by local politicians and fanned by social media that he would try to flee the country, vowing to remain in Bolivia despite the threat of arrest under conservative President Rodrigo Paz, whose election last October ended nearly two decades of rule by Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism party.
“Some media said, ‘Evo is going to leave, Evo is going to flee.’ I said clearly: I am not going to leave. I will stay with the people to defend the homeland,” he said.
Paz’s revival of diplomatic ties with the US and recent efforts to bring back the Drug Enforcement Administration — some 17 years after Morales expelled American anti-drug agents from the Andean country while cozying up to China, Russia, Cuba and Iran — have rattled the coca-growing region that serves as Morales’ bastion of support.
Paz on Thursday confirmed that he would meet Trump in Miami on March 7 for a summit convening politically aligned Latin American leaders as the Trump administration seeks to counter Chinese influence and assert US dominance in the region.
Before proclaiming the candidates he would endorse in Bolivia’s municipal and regional elections next month, Morales launched into a lengthy speech reminiscent of his once-frequent diatribes against US imperialism.
“This is geopolitical propaganda on an international scale,” he said of Trump’s bid to revive the Monroe Doctrine from 1823 in order to reassert American dominance in the Western Hemisphere. “They want to eliminate every left-wing party in Latin America.”