Them too - The Reckoning thread

Post Reply New Topic

Celebrity chef Mario Batali "is now fully divested" from the restaurants that made him famous, his now-former partner, Joe Bastianich, said in a letter Wednesday obtained by ABC News.

Bastianich, his sister Tanya Bastianich Manuali and other one-time partners of Batali bought out his stake in their restaurant empire after Batali was accused by several women of sexual misconduct.

At the time, Batali apologized and stepped away from day-to-day business responsibilities.

There were never criminal charges after police in New York closed several cases for lack of evidence.

David Blaine is under investigation after reports of sexual assault were made against the magician, New York Police Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said on Monday.

An active investigation is under way by the department's special victims division, Shea said at a news conference on Monday. Shea declined to provide any additional details.

Meanwhile, sources familiar with the investigation told CNN that an accuser has come forward to file a report against Blaine with the NYPD. However, the allegation is outside the statute of limitations, according to the sources. It is unclear how the NYPD will proceed with the investigation.

Additionally, a source told CNN there was an investigation into Blaine about a year ago, but it has since been closed.
Blaine did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment.

The New York Times Magazine has published a lengthy expose into the corporate culture of Sterling Jewelers Inc, a corporation which dominates the mall jewelry business with brands like Jared and Kay. It is not pretty.

The Washington Post initially broke the story of employees’ widespread harassment allegations back in 2017, and there is a large class-action lawsuit over the company’s pay practices currently winding its way through the courts. Now Taffy Brodesser-Akner has a new feature for the New York Times Magazine detailing the company’s apparently rotten culture over the decades, alleging gender discrimination in wages and sexual harassment and providing a thorough accounting of how a toxic workplace is created and maintained. She writes about the mountain of sworn statements collected for the lawsuit, which after years is still stalled in litigation:

“The sworn statements, when read from beginning to end, are shocking, first for the consistency of horrors across cities and regions. Then for the egregiousness and audacity of the abuse they detail. But as you make your way through the declarations — to that of a woman in Missouri who, upon finding her store manager with his penis exposed, was asked if she wanted to join in, or another woman, whose manager felt her up while her boyfriend, also a Sterling employee, was facing another direction — they become shocking simply for their volume. When you finally get to the end — Tammy Zenner, who was called Texas Tammy by her colleagues because of the size of her breasts and who complained to her store manager that an executive visiting the store had rubbed himself against her from behind but was told when she complained that she should be flattered — another wave of shock hits you. Hot-tub orgies? At the company that has so profoundly contributed to our notions of gauzy romance and surprise Valentine’s gifts and new and abundant ways to show a woman how she is treasured?”

Brodesser-Akner spoke to dozens of current and former employees, many of whom told her they had loved the job, but often at the cost of living with awful conditions:

“What emerged was not just a list of individual horrors and degradations but an accounting of the systems put in place that allowed the abuse to proliferate and kept it from ever becoming known either to the other women at the company or to the public. What emerged was a portrait of a company that the women said felt all-powerful and was often vindictive to them; a company the women were afraid to run afoul of; a company that was, at various times, described to me as “the Wolf of Wall Street,” but for mall jewelry, and “the Gestapo meets Studio 54.””

The company of course pushed back on her reporting:

“The company maintains that it is innocent, that the suit is in arbitration and that it is private. Its spokesman asked that I be clear with readers that these charges are old — that they believe this story “casts our company in an unfair and erroneous light based on unsubstantiated allegations, most of which are decades old” and have not yet been tested in litigation. They reminded me over and over that the case was not a sexual-harassment case and that there were no claims of sexual impropriety that had made it into the case (although, again, litigation has not begun).
The piece lays everything out in a way that heightens the contradiction at the heart of the story—the notion that a company built on women’s fantasies of being loved and valued would systematically degrade and exploit the women who work there”

Update: A spokesperson for the company has sent us the following statement:

“We’re disappointed that The New York Times decided to publish an article primarily based on decades-old allegations, and we believe casts our company unfairly. Signet is a recognized leader among companies for gender diversity, with women making up 74% of store management positions and full gender parity in both the C-Suite and Board of Directors. Under the leadership of our CEO Gina Drosos, we are undeterred in our ongoing mission to champion diversity and inclusion as a strategic priority and in our multi-year business transformation plan.”

Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. was charged on Thursday with groping a woman at a Manhattan bar last weekend, New York City police said.

The “Jerry Maguire” actor faces one misdemeanor account of forcible touching in an incident on Sunday when an unidentified woman said Gooding touched her breasts.

Gooding, who denies the accusation, emerged in handcuffs after being charged at a New York police facility. He did not speak to reporters.

Gooding, 51, won a supporting actor Oscar in 1997 for “Jerry Maguire” and had roles in “A Few Good Men,” “The Butler” and the television miniseries “The People v. O.J. Simpson.”

New York media reported on Thursday that another woman had come forward this week alleging inappropriate touching by Gooding in 2008.

Mira Sorvino revealed Wednesday that she's a survivor of date rape, saying she was talking about it publicly to lend her voice to a push for stronger sexual assault laws in New York.

The Oscar-winning actress, who was one of the first women to accuse the film producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment, choked up during a news conference at the state Capitol with Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Talking publicly about Weinstein's misconduct, she said, had been traumatic. But she said that she'd also had another, previously undisclosed bad experience with a man she didn't identify.

"I am also a survivor of date rape," she said, her eyes tearing.

Sorvino said she wouldn't go into details, but wanted to disclose the assault to help others.

"I am doing it here to try and help, because there are all these survivors out there right now who need justice, who need to feel that they can take the time they need to sort through the trauma, to sort through the shame," she said. "Because I can tell you in situations of second degree rape, which is what mine would constitute, you feel ashamed. You feel that somehow it was your fault."

In New York, second-degree rape involves victims who cannot consent to sexual activity, either because of their age, mental capacity or state of inebriation.

Advocates want lawmakers to repeal the state's statute of limitations for second- and third-degree rape and tweak the law to make it easier for victims to prove harassment claims.

Screenwriter Max Landis is facing allegations of sexual abuse and psychological manipulation from eight women who told their stories to the Daily Beast.

Two of the women spoke on the record, and another five were identified by pseudonyms. An eighth women confirmed that she filed a police complaint against Landis in 2008, in which she alleged that he had sexually assaulted her while she was drunk and incapacitated. The case was later dropped.

Three of the women alleged that Landis choked them. One woman alleged that Landis held her down and raped her, and would deliberately humiliate her because wanted to have sex with her while she was crying. Two more women described accounts of alleged sexual misconduct on movie sets.

Landis did not respond to requests for comment on the report.

Landis, 33, is the son of director John Landis. Known for writing the screenplay for “Chronicle,” his most recent credit is the David Ayer film “Bright.” Allegations against him have been aired on social media for the last year or more.

Ani Baker told the Daily Beast that she dated Landis for a while and then tried to end the relationship. She says that he continued to pressure her and coerced her into maintaining a sexual relationship. At one point, she says Landis became enraged when she playfully slapped his rear end.

“He turned around and he put his hands around my throat and he got very close to my face and he said, ‘I will f—ing kill you. Do you understand what I’m saying? I will f—ing kill you,'” she told the publication.

The Daily Beast also reported that, after a reassessment, Landis was removed as a producer from the upcoming Chloe Grace Moretz film “Shadow in the Cloud.” The decision was made prior to the publication of Tuesday’s report. “Deeper,” a spec script Landis wrote and sold to MGM in 2016 has now fallen off the company’s film slate, an MGM rep confirmed. Idris Elba was attached to star.

Finally, Landis has said he was hired by Warner Bros. to pen a standalone film for the cartoon character Pepé Le Pew in 2016 — a move cast in a different light by the allegations, which, according to the Daily Beast’s report, included calling one woman “paint cat” while pursuing her.

“He jokingly called me a ‘paint cat’ in reference to the ill-fated feline who tries desperately to escape the clutches of Pepe Le Pew,” she wrote in her statement.

Chronicle” director Josh Trank posted on Twitter that he banned Landis from the set of the 2012 sci-fi film and that he “100% believe[s] every word of this article.”

Prosecutors dropped a case Wednesday accusing Kevin Spacey of groping a young man at a resort island bar in 2016 after the accuser refused to testify about a missing cellphone the defense says contains information supporting the actor’s claims of innocence.

Spacey was charged with indecent assault and battery last year in the only criminal case that has been brought against the actor since his career collapsed amid a slew of sexual misconduct allegations.

Spacey denies groping the man, whose mother first went public with the allegations in 2017.

The actor’s accuser was ordered to take the stand earlier this month after he said he lost the cellphone he used the night of the alleged groping. The defense said it needed the phone to recover deleted text messages it says would help Spacey’s case.

The man denied deleting messages or manipulating screenshots of conversations he provided to investigators. But when he was pressed by the defense about whether he knew that altering evidence is a crime, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination , and the judge said his testimony would be stricken from the record.

The judge then questioned how prosecutors would be able to bring Spacey to trial if the accuser continued to refuse to testify, and prosecutors told the judge they needed time to decide how to proceed.

On Wednesday, Cape and Island District Attorney Michael O’Keefe said in court documents that they were dropping the charge “due to an unavailability of the complaining witness.”

Prosecutors said in an emailed statement that they met with the man and his lawyer Sunday and told him that if he wouldn’t testify in further proceedings, they couldn’t move forward with the case. The man “elected not to waive his right under the Fifth Amendment,” prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said they could further pursue the case and grant the accuser immunity but then they would need more than his uncorroborated testimony.

Furthermore, “a grant of immunity compromises the witness to a degree which, in a case where the credibility of the witness is paramount, makes the further prosecution untenable,” they said.

For decades, Placido Domingo, one of the most celebrated and powerful men in opera, has tried to pressure women into sexual relationships by dangling jobs and then sometimes punishing the women professionally when they refused his advances, numerous accusers told The Associated Press.

At 78, Domingo still attracts sellout crowds around the globe and continues adding to the 150 roles he has sung in 4,000-plus performances, more than any opera singer in history.

But his accusers and others in the industry say there is a troubling side to Domingo — one they say has long been an open secret in the opera world.

Eight singers and a dancer have told the AP that they were sexually harassed by the long-married, Spanish-born superstar in encounters that took place over three decades beginning in the late 1980s, at venues that included opera companies where he held top managerial positions.

One accuser said Domingo stuck his hand down her skirt and three others said he forced wet kisses on their lips — in a dressing room, a hotel room and at a lunch meeting.

A business lunch is not strange,” said one of the singers. “Somebody trying to hold your hand during a business lunch is strange — or putting their hand on your knee is a little strange. He was always touching you in some way, and always kissing you.”

In addition to the nine accusers, a half-dozen other women told the AP that suggestive overtures by Domingo made them uncomfortable, including one singer who said he repeatedly asked her out on dates after hiring her to sing a series of concerts with him in the 1990

The AP also spoke to almost three dozen other singers, dancers, orchestra musicians, members of backstage staff, voice teachers and an administrator who said they witnessed inappropriate sexually tinged behavior by Domingo and that he pursued younger women with impunity.

Domingo did not respond to detailed questions from the AP about specific incidents, but issued a statement saying: “The allegations from these unnamed individuals dating back as many as thirty years are deeply troubling, and as presented, inaccurate.

Still, it is painful to hear that I may have upset anyone or made them feel uncomfortable — no matter how long ago and despite my best intentions. I believed that all of my interactions and relationships were always welcomed and consensual. People who know me or who have worked with me know that I am not someone who would intentionally harm, offend, or embarrass anyone”

However, I recognize that the rules and standards by which we are — and should be — measured against today are very different than they were in the past. I am blessed and privileged to have had a more than 50-year career in opera and will hold myself to the highest standards.”

On Tuesday, the LA Opera, where Domingo has served as general director since 2003, said it would hire outside counsel to investigate the allegations against the star. And the Philadelphia Orchestra rescinded an invitation for Domingo appear at its opening night concert next month.

The accusers’ stories lay out strikingly similar patterns of behavior that included Domingo persistently contacting them — often calling them repeatedly at home late at night — expressing interest in their careers and urging them to meet him privately for a drink or a meal, or at his apartment or hotel room, under the guise of offering professional advice.

None of the women could offer documentation, such as phone messages, but the AP spoke to many colleagues and friends who they confided in. In addition, the AP independently verified that the women worked where they said they did and that Domingo overlapped with them at those locations.

The AP has withheld certain details in cases where it could lead to identification of the accuser.

Two of the women said they briefly gave in to Domingo’s advances, feeling they couldn’t risk jeopardizing their careers by saying no to the most powerful man in their profession.

One of them said she had sex with him twice, including at the Biltmore hotel in Los Angeles. When Domingo left for a performance, the woman said, he put $10 on the dresser, saying, “I don’t want you to feel like a prostitute, but I also don’t want you to have to pay to park.”

Many of the accusers said they were warned repeatedly by colleagues to never be alone with Domingo, even in an elevator. If they did join him for a meal, they said they were told to avoid alcohol and meet at a public place — for lunch, not dinner.

The women making the accusations were mostly young and starting their careers at the time.

Friedman)
Several said they took extreme measures to avoid Domingo, including no longer using the ladies’ room near his office, asking other singers or backstage staff to stick with them while at work, and not answering their phones at home.

The dancer called her avoidance technique “the bob and weave, the giggle and get out,” and one soprano labeled it “walking the tightrope.”

Domingo’s influence in the opera world is so great that Wulf was the only person among the dozens who talked to the AP who spoke on the record. And many of those who spoke did so reluctantly, fearing retribution but also not wanting to inflict collateral damage on the industry itself.

But ultimately, those who talked to the AP said they felt emboldened by the #MeToo movement and decided the most effective way to attack the entrenched sexual misconduct in their industry was to call out the behavior of opera’s most prominent figure.

“There is an oral tradition of warning women against Placido Domingo,” said a mezzo-soprano who worked at the LA Opera but is not among the accusers. She echoed advice that several women said they had received: “Avoid interaction with him at all costs. And definitely don’t be alone with him.”

Am I going to be the target or not?”

Another mezzo-soprano who is one of the accusers was 23 and singing in the LA Opera chorus when she first met Domingo in 1988.

During a rehearsal of “Tales of Hoffman,” she was selected to kiss Domingo in an orgy scene. She said she remembers wiping his saliva off her face from a sloppy, wet kiss after which he whispered in her ear, “I wish we weren’t on stage.”

After that incident, she said, Domingo started calling her at home frequently, although she had not given him her number. He told her she was a talented singer with a promising future and he wanted to help her.

“I hadn’t started my career yet. I was completely flattered. And floored. And excited,” she said. “Then it got creepier.”

“He would say things like, ‘Come to my apartment. Let’s sing through some arias. I’ll give you coaching. I’d like to hear what you can do for casting.’”

Over the course of the next three years, she said, he was uncomfortably affectionate, slipping a hand around her waist when they crossed backstage or giving her a kiss on the cheek a bit too close to the mouth. He knew the key codes for the dressing rooms and would enter uninvited, she said, which she said she assumed was to catch her undressed.

Domingo was an artistic consultant at LA Opera in the 1980s when his stardom went mainstream. Newsweek magazine dubbed him “The King of The Opera” in a 1982 cover story and he appeared on popular television shows like “Sesame Street,” where a character, Placido Flamingo, was named for him. His collaboration in the “Three Tenors,” with the late Luciano Pavarotti and Jose Carreras, produced the best-selling classical recording of all time.

Rather than offend Domingo and risk losing future assignments, the mezzo-soprano said she strenuously tried to avoid being alone with him, while also striving not to insult him. But he did not take the hint, she said, and resumed his unwelcome pursuit whenever he returned to Los Angeles.

One night, she said, she agreed to meet Domingo about 11 p.m. “and then I had a full-blown panic attack. I freaked out, and I just kept not answering the phone. He just filled up the machine, calling me until 3:30 in the morning.”

She said she didn’t report his behavior because “that just wasn’t done” and also feared any misstep could kill her career.

Singers and administrators would “smile and shrug,” she said. “Everybody would see me running around to avoid him and laugh it off. That’s how everybody dealt with Placido.”

One backstage staff member said many felt Domingo was pursuing the mezzo-soprano “in some way that she was not wanting. We were all aware of that.” And a male singer and friend told the AP that he remembered the singer seeking his advice about how to navigate the situation.

How do you say no to God?”

The LA Opera announced in 1998 that Domingo would become its artistic director, after working for years as a consultant for the company.

A young singer who met Domingo at a rehearsal that year said he immediately began calling her at home.

“He would say, ‘I’m going to talk to you as the future artistic director of the company’” and discuss possible roles for her, she said. “Then he would lower his voice and say, ‘Now I’m going to talk to you as Placido,’” she said, and ask her to meet him — for a drink in Santa Monica, to see a movie, to come to his apartment so he could cook her breakfast.

During one of his frequent uninvited visits to her dressing room, he admired her costume, leaning forward to kiss her cheeks and placing one hand on the side of her breast, she said.

The LA Opera announced in 1998 that Domingo would become its artistic director, after working for years as a consultant for the company.

A young singer who met Domingo at a rehearsal that year said he immediately began calling her at home.

“He would say, ‘I’m going to talk to you as the future artistic director of the company’” and discuss possible roles for her, she said. “Then he would lower his voice and say, ‘Now I’m going to talk to you as Placido,’” she said, and ask her to meet him — for a drink in Santa Monica, to see a movie, to come to his apartment so he could cook her breakfast.

During one of his frequent uninvited visits to her dressing room, he admired her costume, leaning forward to kiss her cheeks and placing one hand on the side of her breast, she said.

From the beginning, the singer — who was 27 and just starting her career — said she felt panicked and trapped.

“I was totally intimidated and felt like saying no to him would be saying no to God. How do you say no to God?” she said.

As the calls wore on, she stopped picking up the phone. In person, she gave excuses, she said: She was busy, she was tired, she had an audition, she was married. She quoted Domingo as replying on one occasion: “It’s a shame your husband doesn’t understand about your career.”

After one performance, the singer said she went home and answered the phone, her heart sinking when she heard Domingo’s voice.

--The allegations range from killing entire stories on alleged rape offenders, shutting down reports of sexual assault to protect themselves, and firing an employee who might have tried to hold the network accountable.