"A Texas grand jury has declined to indict the onetime deputy to Cardinal Daniel DiNardo on charges he sexually assaulted a married woman in a case that raised questions about consent in the #MeToo era.

The Harris County District Attorney's Office had presented the case against Monsignor Frank Rossi on Monday, more than a year after Laura Pontikes filed a criminal complaint with Houston police.

The Associated Press in June reported that Pontikes, a Houston business executive, had alleged that Rossi manipulated her into a sexual relationship, all while acting as her spiritual adviser, hearing her confessions, soliciting six-figure donations and counseling her husband on their troubled marriage.

The Catholic hierarchy — which is already trying to stem the loss of credibility over the scandal of priests raping children — has long sought to paint priest-parishioner relationships as consensual and blamed the woman for tempting the priest."

"Conor McGregor, one of the biggest stars of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, is being investigated over a sexual assault allegation, the second such case in less than 12 months, according to people familiar with the matter.

The police passed the findings of the investigation in the first case to Ireland’s prosecutor’s office earlier this year. McGregor was arrested in January, questioned by law enforcement authorities and released pending further investigation, per the usual protocol in criminal investigations in Ireland and much of the rest of Europe, where a formal charge does not necessarily follow an arrest.

The allegations have not been proved, and the existence of the investigations does not imply that McGregor is guilty of any crime.


“Conor McGregor is frequently the subject of rumors,” a publicist for the fighter said in an emailed statement. “He emphatically denies any report accusing him of sexual assault.”

In August, five months after The New York Times first named McGregor in connection with the first sexual assault allegation, White said he knew “zero” about it, before adding: “To be honest with you, the back-and-forth that I’ve had with him about that is that it’s not him — it’s somebody else. So I don’t know.”"

"Boston University students know all about the many resources their school offers to prevent and respond to reports of sexual assault and harassment, but despite widespread awareness, those troubling issues remain a concern, according to results from BU’s 2019 Campus Climate Survey of Sexual Assault and Misconduct. 

Roughly one-third of respondents said they experienced some level of sexual harassment since starting at BU; one-third of undergraduate women reported some type of nonconsensual sexual contact; one in every seven respondents reported some incident of stalking behavior. The most common harassment experiences reported were hearing insulting or offensive sexual remarks or jokes and hearing inappropriate comments about their or someone else’s body, appearance, or sexual activities. The most commonly reported harassers were people whom the respondents were familiar with, or they were classmates or friends.

The summary reports that 23.7 percent of BU undergraduate women and 7.4 percent of graduate women were victims of incidents that involved physical force or the inability to consent or stop what was happening. Nearly half of them (46.1 percent) contacted a program or resource. "

"A Pennsylvania man has been charged with sexually assaulting a bridesmaid from his wife's bridal party two days before his wedding, according to police. The wedding went on as planned.

Daniel J. Carney allegedly assaulted a 29-year-old Oregon woman Aug. 30 in a men’s locker room at the Shawnee Inn in Smithfield Township following a day of rafting and paddleboarding on the Delaware River, according to the criminal complaint.

The victim, who was in town for the Sept. 1 wedding, told state police that she had three beers and one or two vodka shots while on the rafting trip with the wedding party and other friends. According to the criminal complaint, she said she remembered being heavily intoxicated and being placed on a raft because she could not maintain her position on a paddleboard.

That’s when her memory gets hazy, she said, and that other members of the wedding party and friends told her what happened next, the complaint states. She said that when the group arrived at the Shawnee Inn at 8 p.m., she was unable to stand on her own."

"A top Silicon Valley deal-maker has been accused of subjecting a junior law partner to repeated sexual assaults and sabotaging her career after she tried to rebuff his advances.

Vanina Guerrero charged in a complaint to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Tuesday that she was attacked by Louis Lehot two weeks after she joined the DLA Piperlaw firm in September 2018.

“Leave me alone,” Guerrero said she yelled after Lehot allegedly grabbed her by the waist and tried to kiss her.

Guerrero’s allegations are just the latest to emerge from Silicon Valley where women have long complained about sexual harassment in the tech industry where the decision-makers are overwhelmingly male.

After learning in July that Guerrero had hired a lawyer, Lehot “attempted to reach her via personal cell and text in order to exert his influence and manipulate her,” the complaint states."

"“The Fast and the Furious” director Rob Cohen has been accused of sexual assault.According to a report in HuffPost published Saturday, Cohen allegedly sexually assaulted an unnamed victim — given the name Jane in the article to protect her anonymity — while she was unconscious. The reported assault occurred in 2015 after Cohen invited Jane to a business meeting in Manhattan to discuss collaborating on a TV pilot."

"​Earlier this year, Cohen faced similar charges from his daughter Valkyrie Weather who accused him of molesting her when she was a child. Weather also accused Cohen of taking her to visit sex workers in overseas shooting locations when she was a teen. Cohen has denied the allegations."

"WASHINGTON — A senior policy adviser on female veterans issues for the House said she was assaulted last week at the V.A. Medical Center in Washington by a man who slammed his body against hers and then pressed himself against her in the center’s cafe."

"The woman, Andrea Goldstein, a reserve Navy intelligence officer and a lead staff member for the Women Veterans Task Force on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, was waiting for a smoothie at a cafe in the busy center, which has one of the most celebrated women’s clinics in the Department of Veterans Affairs health system.
A male patron body slammed her below the waist and told her that “you look like you could use a good time,” Ms. Goldstein said in an interview. “He pressed his entire body against mine.”

​

"The woman who read a powerful statement at the sentencing of a college swimmer who sexually assaulted her at Stanford University is speaking out for the first time after revealing her identity earlier this month."

"She now wants the world to know her name and her face, identifying herself in a memoir scheduled to be released Tuesday."

"'In order to survive, you just shut everything down,' Miller said when asked about how she coped with what happened. “You have to function. You have to go to work in the morning. It was much easier to just repress everything.”She was found by two students completely unconscious and half-naked behind a dumpster. Turner tried to flee, but the students tackled and pinned him down until police arrived."

"Lyft was hit with five more lawsuits on Tuesday by women who allege they were sexually assaulted or raped by drivers on its platform.
Their allegations echo those of other women who've recently sued the company: That Lyft has been aware that its drivers were sexually assaulting and raping female passengers for years but has failed to take adequate steps to protect passengers and warn them of the issue. Four of the lawsuits are filed on behalf of named women; one is filed on behalf of a Jane Doe.

The allegations in the new lawsuits range from unwanted sexual advances, to breaking into a rider's home after a drop-off and groping her, to being kidnapped and gang raped. The alleged incidents occurred between 2017 and 2018."

"Less than two weeks ago, 14 other unnamed women sued Lyft, alleging that the company "chooses to stonewall" law enforcement investigating assaults and that it fails to inform victims about the status of the drivers they've accused of sexual assault or rape."