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A woman who alleges that she was sexually assaulted by Los Angeles Lakers forward Devin Ebanks after the two met at a Hollywood nightclub is asking a judge to allow her to proceed with her lawsuit against him as
Read the whole story at hollywood.patch.com
Artistic director of the Bolshoi ballet Sergei Filin spoke with the media after leaving a hospital in Moscow, Russia, on Feb. 4, 2013. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze, File)
MOSCOW, March 5 (Reuters) - A suspect was detained on Tuesday over an acid attack that nearly blinded the artistic director of Russia's Bolshoi Ballet and put a spotlight on infighting at one of the world's great theatres.
Sergei Filin, 42, was badly burned when a masked assailant threw sulphuric acid in his face outside his Moscow apartment as he returned home late on Jan. 17. He is now in Germany having treatment that is expected to save his sight.
A brief statement from Moscow police said the person detained was "one of the suspects" in the case and was being questioned. Until now, police had detained no suspects and questioned only witnesses over an attack that shocked Russia.
LifeNews, a Russian website with close ties to the police, and Interfax news agency quoted a police source as saying the suspect was a man who had been seized in a police raid in Moscow's suburbs and was not an employee of the Bolshoi Theatre.
His home was being searched and he was suspected of carrying out the attack itself, LifeNews said.
"This is good news for us," Katerina Novikova, the Bolshoi Theatre's spokeswoman, said of the suspect's detention.
"And if they have managed to find the person who carried it out (the attack), there is hope that they can find the person who ordered it," she said.
Filin was left writhing in agony in the snow for about 20 minutes after the attack. As artistic director of the theatre's ballet company, he had the power to make or break careers in the fiercely competitive world of ballet.
He said before heading to Germany last month that he believed he knew who was behind the attack and that it might be connected to his work. He said he would not reveal a name until police made an announcement on the case.
HISTORY OF INTRIGUE
The theatre has been no stranger to intrigue since it was built under Empress Catherine the Great in 1776 and the ballet troupe has gone through five artistic directors since 1995.
In 2003, Bolshoi bosses were heavily criticised for trying to fire ballerina Anastasia Volochkova for being too heavy. In 2011, deputy ballet director Gennady Yanin - then seen as a candidate for the artistic director post - quit after pornographic images of him appeared on the Internet.
The theatre, near Moscow's Red Square, reopened to great fanfare in 2011 after a six-year, $700-million renovation that restored its tsarist opulence but was criticised for going far over budget.
It has regularly been under fire over its artistic programme since then.
Leading Russian cultural figures wrote to President Vladimir Putin last November calling for the dismissal of the Bolshoi's general manager, Anatoly Iksanov. Among his critics are veteran dancer Nikolai Tsiskaridze, who challenged him for his job.
The Bolshoi dismissed the criticism, saying it failed to take into account the troupe's latest performances.
A prominent current affairs television show, Post Scriptum, blamed the management last month for failing to prevent scandals. (Editing by Pravin Char)
SAN FRANCISCO — Criminal charges won't be filed against 49ers wide receiver Michael Crabtree after an alleged sexual assault in a hotel after the team's playoff victory over the Green Bay Packers, San Francisco's district attorney said Friday.
After examining information submitted by police, District Attorney George Gascon said his office determined that no charges would be filed "at this time."
"The San Francisco Police Department - Special Victims Unit completed and submitted a thorough investigation of the allegations against Michael Crabtree," Gascon said.
Crabtree's attorney, Joshua Bentley, didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.
San Francisco police said Crabtree was never detained or arrested in the matter, and that he cooperated fully with their investigation.
The 49ers are preparing to meet the Baltimore Ravens in the Super Bowl on Feb. 3 in New Orleans.
49ers general manager Trent Baalke said the team was pleased that the district attorney decided to not file charges after reviewing the matter.
"Michael and the team can now put this behind us and move forward," Baalke said in a statement.
During the regular season, Crabtree became the first San Francisco wide receiver with more than 1,000 yards in a season since Terrell Owens in 2003.
Also on HuffPost:
By Jim Forsyth
SAN ANTONIO, Jan 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. House Armed Services Committee will hold a public hearing on Wednesday into sexual assault in the military, prompted by outrage over a sex-with-recruits scandal at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.
The Washington hearing comes after nearly 60 current and former personnel, including two men, came forward with what the Air Force considered credible reports that they were sexually abused by their drill sergeants at the base in San Antonio.
Six drill sergeants have been convicted and six more Lackland Military Training Instructors are awaiting court martial in the case. The probe also recently expanded to a recruiting sergeant who was charged with sexually assaulting women who were discussing joining the Air Force.
More than 70 members of Congress signed a petition calling for an open hearing into the case and a similar public petition drew more than 10,000 signatures.
Air Force Chief of Staff General Mark Welsh and General Edward Rice, commander of the Air Education and Training Command are both expected to testify on Wednesday.
They are likely to address the completed Air Force internal investigation of Lackland, the Air Force's center for basic training, and the alleged incidents dating back to 2009. The Air Force has extended its inquiry back 10 years.
The House committee chairman, California Republican Howard "Buck" McKeon, told Reuters military commanders were expected to provide an environment of security and respect and "without question" had violated that trust.
"I expect them to tell this committee and the American people what went wrong and what they are doing to rebuild the good faith that the Lackland scandal has erased," he said.
Committee member Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, said the Air Force did not appear willing to get to the root of the problem.
"I intend to ask whether General (Margaret) Woodward, who conducted a formal review of the culture at Lackland without speaking to a single victim, amended her report and recommendations to include interviews with any of the young women who were raped, sexually assaulted, or sexually harassed by thirty military training instructors," Speier said.
Nancy Parrish, who leads an advocacy group for victims of sexual asault in the military called Protect Our Defenders, said there was an epidemic of sexual assault in the military and a culture that punishes the victim. She said it was time for President Barack Obama to act.
"We look to the Commander in Chief to make this a top priority in 2013," Parrish said, adding that she hoped the hearings would be a first step.
Paula Coughlin, a former Navy helicopter pilot who exposed the "Tailhook Scandal," in which female pilots were sexually assaulted and harassed during a Las Vegas convention in 1991, believes authority to investigate and prosecute sexual assault cases should be given to an independent civilian panel.
"It has to come out of the chain of command, because the chain of command has really become impotent," Coughlin said. "The chain of command is vested in protecting itself, and so often, the perpetrator of the assault is in the chain of command."
Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Addicott, a long time Judge Advocate General for the Army Special Forces, argued that the Air Force investigation headed by General Woodward had led to realistic solutions.
The Air Force has increased the number of female Military Training Instructors in basic training, and now requires two squadrons of recruits be trained by four instructors, at least one of whom is a woman.
He said that in many cases the demands of Congress for quick and full integration of women into all military branches had led to the current problem.
"The problem lies not just with the military, but with the people who want to engage in social engineering to create this utopian idea of what men and women should or shouldn't do," he said.
Parrish said a 2010 Pentagon report estimated that there were 19,000 military rapes and sexual assaults each year, but only 3,200 victims reported attacks and only 191 cases resulted in court martial convictions.
"It is yet to be determined whether these hearings will be another footnote in this tragic American story, or whether Congress will take on its responsibility of oversight to fix this problem," Parrish said. (Editing by David Bailey and David Brunnstrom)
