The Daily Blog

Charles Novak, Maryland Man, Gets 10 Years For Taping Nude Women.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A Maryland man has pleaded guilty to breaking into homes and secretly recording videos of hundreds of unsuspecting nude women.

Thirty-five-year-old Charles Novak of Crofton was sentenced to 10 years in jail Wednesday in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court for burglary and other charges. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender.

Novak was arrested in December after a woman told police she found a man sitting in a car in her garage. Officers found Novak, who had a camera with videos of nude women who didn’t appear to be aware they were being recorded.

Prosecutors say Novak had 2,282 video clips of 260 different women. Some of the women have been identified, but many have not.

Novak’s attorney says his client is obsessive-compulsive and wants to get help.

Georges Tron Resigns In Wake Of Sexual Assault Allegations.

PARIS — A minister accused of sexually assaulting two women he once worked with resigned Sunday in an apparent bid to spare the French government the kind of notoriety the opposition has faced since its leading man, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was charged with attempting to rape a Manhattan hotel maid.

A preliminary investigation was opened last week against George Tron, who served as a junior civil service minister, after two women alleged that he had attacked them between 2007 and 2010.

One of the women said she was inspired to come forward after a housekeeper at a luxury Manhattan hotel claimed she was sexually assaulted by Strauss-Kahn, 62, a leading presidential hopeful in next year’s elections for the rival Socialist Party. He resigned his post as International Monetary Fund chief after charges were filed in New York.

Tron, 53, is a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative UMP party who joined the government just over a year ago.

Tron’s resignation appeared to be damage control as Sarkozy primps his image for a likely re-election bid in the presidential race in a year’s time. The popular Strauss-Kahn had been expected to run as the Socialist candidate for president.

Both Tron and Strauss-Kahn have denied any wrongdoing.

No replacement for Tron was immediately announced. It was widely reported that Budget Minister Francois Baroin would absorb Tron’s functions, seamlessly filling the void in a move to keep the spotlight off the government.

A statement from Prime Minister Francois Fillon’s office noted Tron has denied the allegations and praised him for acting in the “general interest.”

Tron’s lawyer, Olivier Schnerb, has said the allegations against him are “unjust” and he has received instructions from his client to sue the women for “malicious slander.”

He claims the women were both fired from their jobs at the town hall of Draveil, south of Paris – where Tron has been mayor since 1995 – suggesting that they had a personal vendetta.

A preliminary investigation for rape and sexual assault was opened Wednesday against Tron. This initial probe allows prosecutors to decide whether to pursue or drop the case.

The two women, aged 34 and 36, have claimed that foot massages administered by Tron evolved into assault.

Tron is adept at foot reflexology, an alternative medicine based on the notion that zones of the foot correspond to certain body parts and pressure on those points can promote health.

The women told the newspaper Le Parisien last week that Tron assaulted them behind locked doors at the town hall.

One said she was too ashamed to tell anyone at first, but that she spoke out after the charges were brought in New York against Strauss-Kahn.

“When I saw that a chambermaid was capable of taking on Dominique Strauss-Kahn, I told myself I didn’t have the right to keep quiet,” said the woman, who was not identified by name.

“Other women may be suffering what I suffered. I have to help them. We have to break this code of silence.”

In its online site, the newsweekly L’Express quoted Tron as vowing in his letter of resignation to “make (his) innocence known by combatting the vindictive allegations of two former colleagues,” one he claimed was dismissed for allegedly pilfering funds in her care, the other for unfit behavior.

Rick Perry Signs Mandatory Sonogram Bill, Center for Reproductive Rights Retaliates.

Republican Gov. Rick Perry signed a bill on Tuesday that would force Texas women to undergo an ultrasound, hear a detailed description of the fetus and then wait a full 24 hours before receiving abortion care.

Mandatory sonogram bills, which NARAL Pro-Choice America calls “one of the most dangerous anti-choice state trends in 2011,” have been introduced in 14 states so far this year. Arizona, Louisiana and Texas have already enacted ultrasound laws, and Gov. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) is expected to sign a similar proposal in the coming week.

The Texas law — which is one of the more most extreme sonogram proposals that has passed — requires doctors to tell a woman the size of her fetus’ limbs and organs, even if she does not want to know. The law also forces physicians to make an image of the fetus and the sound of its heartbeat available to a woman before she can undergo the abortion procedure.

Perry, who made the bill an emergency measure, said on Tuesday that the law will “ensure that every Texas woman seeking an abortion has all the facts about the life she is carrying and understands the devastating impact of such a life-changing decision.”

But an attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights said the legislation violates standard medical ethics and “treats women as too immature and incompetent” to make these decisions on their own.

“This law is extreme and patronizing to women in a variety of ways,” Bebe Anderson, senior counsel for CRR, told HuffPost. “It hijacks the doctor-patient relationship, assumes what a woman must know to make a decision and forces doctors to say things to their patients that they otherwise shouldn’t and wouldn’t.”

CRR is fighting against similar legislation in Oklahoma. The group was granted a preliminary injunction to block the law there, and Anderson says it is in the beginning stages of preparing a challenge to the Texas law.

“Informed consent is supposed to be about medical risk,” she said. “Pregnant women are already aware that they’re carrying a fetus.”

Illinois Man Accused of Killing 3 Women, Taping Attack.

CHICAGO - Prosecutors said Wednesday that a suburban Chicago man charged with killing three young women, including two whom he met on telephone chat lines and a neighborhood teen he’s accused of having videotaped sex with after her death, may have more victims.

Sonny Pierce, 27, of the Chicago suburb of Blue Island, faces three counts of first-degree murder. A judge ordered him held without bail during a court appearance Wednesday. A public defender who was in court with Pierce declined comment.

Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, in announcing the charges, pointed to a “pattern” of behavior that allegedly stretched for about a year before Pierce’s arrest on another sexual assault. Authorities have not identified any victims besides the three at this time, but believe there could be more.

“We would like to hear from anyone out there who has had previous contact with Pierce or any other young woman who may have been potential victims, or any families who are missing a loved one,” Alvarez said at a news conference.

Investigators said the body of one of the women Pierce is charged with killing has never been found, and it took nearly a year to identify the remains of a second victim. This leads those working the case to think there might be additional victims.

“It is our obligation to try to identify any other women who may have been victimized,” Alvarez said.

Two of the young women were killed in August 2009. Prosecutors said Kiara Windom and Kimika Coleman, both 18, were slain within a span of about three weeks. Authorities allege Pierce lured both to his apartment, strangled them and dumped their bodies in alleys.

Alvarez said phone records show Pierce had conversations with both women. Windom’s cell phone records show she and Pierce talked about 20 times, the prosecutor said.

Investigators first interviewed Pierce in 2009 in the slaying of Coleman. They said Pierce admitted he had sex with her but told them he dropped her off on a street corner in Blue Island and drove back home.

Pierce’s name surfaced again in July of last year after investigators identified Windom’s body and determined she, like Coleman, had talked with Windom on the phone.

Around the same time, Pierce was arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl. Authorities allege that he lured her into his car, drove her to his home, dragged her inside, choked her until she lost consciousness and sexually assaulted her.

The girl survived and authorities say she identified Pierce as her attacker. He was arrested a short time later.

Investigators made a chilling discovery when searching Pierce’s home, according to court documents. They said they found a videotape believed to be from July 2, 2010, that shows Pierce having sex with the lifeless body of a young woman.

She was later identified as 17-year-old Mariah Edwards, who lived in the same suburb as Pierce, Alvarez said.According to the court documents, Pierce admitted having sex with Edwards “despite her cries for help” in his apartment while other men looked on. Investigators said he told them he and the other men beat Edwards to death, put her body in a garbage bag and dumped it.

But authorities said Pierce has refused to say where the body was taken. No others have been charged.

In addition to the phone records, Alvarez said investigators have found DNA evidence linking Pierce to two of the slayings.

Alvarez also said the slayings, particularly the ones in which the victims allegedly met Pierce over the phone, underline concerns about the safety of young women.

“These are all young girls, and I think with the social media and network and chat lines it just reminds us how dangerous that is,” she said.

New Zealand Women Set Off Airport Metal Detectors With Foil-Wrapped Marijuana.

File this under “how stupid can you be?” of the day: Two women are facing drug possession charges after one was caught with marijuana in her bra. OK that’s bad but the reason the marijuana was found was that it was wrapped in foil, which set off the metal detectors at the New Zealand airport where they were attempting to board their flight.The women, from Christchurch, New Zealand were apprehended at the country’s Queenstown Airport after repeatedly setting off metal detectors.One woman, age 52, had 50 grams of marijuana dispersed throughout 28 individually foil-wrapped packets hidden in her bra, the “Southland Times” reports.Upon the discovery, her friend, age 44, was also questioned by police. It was revealed that she had hidden 40 grams of marijuana on her body.The women were trying to board a plane to Christchurch when the incident occurred.

Obama Calls for Passage of Workplace Fairness Act for Women.

President Obama, who has two young daughters, pressed Saturday for passage of a bill meant to make it easier for women to have their day in court when they feel employers are underpaying them simply because of their gender.

Obama, in his weekly address, said he was disappointed when the Senate fell just short of approving the Paycheck Fairness Act last year. He urged Congress to take another crack at it and vowed, “I’m going to keep up the fight to pass the reforms in that bill.”

The legislation would treat gender discrimination involving wages in the same manner as discrimination related to race, age or disability — effectively opening up another avenue for court challenges. Many business interests oppose it because they fear a flood of litigation.

“At a time when folks across this country are struggling to make ends meet — and many families are just trying to get by on one paycheck after a job loss — it’s a reminder that achieving equal pay for equal work isn’t just a women’s issue. It’s a family issue,” Obama said. “It is something I care deeply about as the father of two daughters who wants to see his girls grow up in a world where there are no limits to what they can achieve,” he said.

Women have made great strides, he said. For instance, they are now more likely to attend college than men. Yet American women are also more likely to live in poverty and still earn only 75 cents for every dollar made by male workers, the president said.

For the Republicans Saturday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) talked about energy costs as the price at the pump for motorists continues to rise in part due to the crisis in Libya. Murkowski acknowledged the upheaval in oil-producing Libya and the middle east. But she said the U.S. needs to produce more of its own energy from the Gulf of Mexico, the Rocky Mountain states and Alaska. “Our own shortsightedness and restrictions have played a role” in the cost increases, she said.

Police: Serial Rape Suspect Tried to Hang Self.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The man suspected of terrorizing women with sexual assaults from Virginia to Rhode Island over 12 years tried to hang himself in his cell Saturday, but survived and was treated at a hospital, police said.

Aaron Thomas, 39, was returned to jail after a brief hospital stay, New Haven police Officer Joe Avery said Saturday night. Thomas is scheduled to appear Monday in New Haven Superior Court.

Police said Saturday that DNA confirmed that the unemployed truck driver is the East Coast Rapist, suspected in attacks on at least 17 women.Thomas could not be reached for comment; it was not clear whether he had legal representation.

“It’s just shocking to me,” said 15-year-old Dashawn Golding, who said his mother is Thomas’ girlfriend. “She’s crying a lot,” he said of his mother.

A woman who answered the phone where neighbors said Thomas lived with his girlfriend said she was devastated.

“I almost died,” the woman told The Associated Press before she hung up without giving her name. “I’m scared to walk out my door. I’m just as innocent as the next person.”The woman, who said she met Thomas outside a hospital where she works, said Thomas’ 5-year-old son was crying when he learned of the charges. There was a heavy police presence Saturday as investigators searched the house, a yellow colonial with blue shutters and a security sign on the front lawn.

Lt. Julie Johnson said DNA was collected and subsequently matched by the state police forensic lab confirming Thomas was the East Coast Rapist. Investigators reportedly got Thomas’ DNA off a discarded cigarette.

Police have a warrant charging Thomas with first-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor and he was being held on $1 million bond, Johnson said. Authorities in Prince William County, Va., are charging him with being a fugitive as well as rape and abduction charges and use of a firearm while committing a felony.

The East Coast Rapist is wanted for 17 rapes and other attacks in Connecticut, Maryland, Rhode Island and Virginia that began in 1997. The cases were linked by DNA.

Authorities recently put up electronic billboards in the states where the attacks occurred and neighboring states. U.S. Marshal Joe Faughnan said a tip from Prince William County directed them to Thomas.

“Although the information and investigation of Thomas developed quickly over the last week or so, we should point out that investigators worked tirelessly for years pursuing this case,” Johnson said. “This was truly a joint collaboration on all levels. We are proud of our investigation and hope the arrest of Aaron Thomas brings some closure to our victims and our communities.”

Johnson did not take questions during the brief news conference.

A neighbor said Thomas was living with a woman in the house in a desirable neighborhood not far from where the mayor lives. The woman, who refused to give her name, said Saturday that Thomas is a truck driver and parked his tractor-trailer in the residential neighborhood, but he seemed to be unemployed and would offer to paint or rake leaves for neighbors.

The woman said Thomas once punched her husband in the face after they got in an argument over his truck.

Another neighbor said Thomas would ride his bicycle as far as Hartford and jogged many miles.

“He liked working out,” said the neighbor, who would only give his first name as Jason. “He could run all day long and never stop.”

Thomas was not entirely unknown to law enforcement: He had been arrested in September in Woodbridge, Conn., on a larceny charge and was released on $1,000 bond, according to public records.

He had lived previously at addresses in Maryland and Virginia, according to public records.The assailant eluded police even though the crimes were often committed outdoors, law enforcement officials say.

In some instances, the attacker wore a mask or hooded sweat shirt to conceal his face. He typically approached women outdoors on foot and threatened them with a knife, screwdriver or a handgun, investigators say.

The only attack in New Haven came on Jan. 10, 2007. Police said the suspect entered a 27-year-old woman’s bedroom through an open window and threatened to kill her sleeping infant son before assaulting her.

The last known attack occurred on Halloween night in 2009, when two teenagers on their way home from trick-or-treating in Woodbridge, Va., were raped, authorities say.

Women Willing to Give Up Sex, Cell Phones, Days Off for a Sharp-Dressed Man.

What would you be willing to give up to love a sharp-dressed man?

While we like to think that it’s the inside that always counts, Men’s Warehouse recently conducted a survey asking women how high a man’s fashion sense ranked in a lady’s list of priorities and found that 78 percent of women say one of the hottest things a man can ever do is know how to dress. Apparently it’s so important to us, there’s a whole bunch of stuff we are willing to forego in exchange.

According to the survey:

• 10 percent of women would give up sex or the Internet for a sharp-dressed fella
• 23 percent would toss their iPhone into the nearest river if he’d get rid of those pleated pants
• 32 percent of women have actually tossed a piece of their significant other’s clothing
• 65 percent said, more gently, that their other half’s closet “could use a makeover”

While it seems like this survey highlights our more superficial side, we must admit that there is just something libido-busting about a guy wearing mandals or carrying a murse.

17 Victims Sue Pentagon Over ‘Plague’ of Sexual Violence.

WASHINGTON — It may become a landmark case to force the military to take rape and sexual assault seriously. Or it could be yet another failed attempt in a decades-long battle by women to be accepted in the armed forces.

Seventeen veterans and active-duty service members today took the first step to determining that, suing the Pentagon on charges of violating their constitutional rights to serve their country.

They accused two secretaries of defense of condoning, ignoring and implicitly encouraging sexual abuse in the ranks in a 42-page complaint filed in federal district court in Alexandria, Va., which contains phrases like “f—-ing whore,” “bitch” and “troublemaker.”The plaintiffs, who include two men, come from every military branch. They charge they were victimized twice — once by their assailants and again by the institution they served.

“The system is driven by rape myths,” said Myla Haider, a former Army criminal investigator who was raped by a co-worker. The co-worker was later court-martialed in another case as a “serial sex offender.”
“There is a pervasive attitude within DOD that any man might commit these types of offenses and therefore when these things do come up it is seen as something that is commited by a peer or just another soldier” and not taken seriously, said Haider, a plaintiff in the suit.

Such attitudes aren’t new. Ever since the infamous Tailhook scandal broke out in 1991 after the first Gulf War, an unending series of investigations, congressional hearings, reports, training regimens and special offices have sought to end the problem that the acronym-obsessed service now has given its very own name: MST — military sexual trauma.

Eleanor Smeal of the Feminist Majority Foundation, who has watched for decades as women warriors fought to be accepted in the macho ranks of the military, said the challenge in civil court “is necessary because so much else has failed.”

As a Marine captain, Anuradha Bhagwati witnessed her own senior officers violate sexual harassment policies.Bhagwati is now the head of the advocacy group Service Women’s Action Network. She says she has seen those violators “shirk their responsibilities to their own troops … transfer sexual predators out of the units instead of prosecuting them, promote sexual predators during ongoing investigations and accuse highly decorated enlisted service members of lying.”

She called sexual violence “a plague upon the United States military” that “threatens our national security by undermining operational readiness, draining morale, harming retention and destroying lives.”The stories told by Haider and other plaintiffs at a news conference this morning were harrowing. Among them:

• Kori Cioca, the lead plaintiff, said she was constantly harassed by her Coast Guard supervisor. After she made a mistake during a knot-tying quiz, he called her a “stupid f—-ing female, who didn’t belong in the military” and then spit in her face. After complaining to her superior, the abuse escalated to stalking, sexual harassment and ultimately rape in December 2005. Despite an admission from her rapist, commanders told Cioca if she pressed charges she would be court-martialed for lying and later faced retaliation.
• Sarah Albertson was raped by a fellow Marine who outranked her in 2006. Because they had been drinking alcohol, both she and the man were charged with “inappropriate barracks conduct,” and she was ordered to “respect” her assailant. Commanders forced the corporal to interact with her rapist for two more years, suspending her security clearance and downgrading her work assignments because she took prescription medicine to cope with the trauma of being forced to live and work with her rapist.
• Rebekah Havrilla was an Army sergeant serving in Afghanistan in 2006 when she was sexually harassed by a supervisor and later raped by another soldier. She reported it under the military’s restricted reporting policy. When she later saw her rapist at a base in Missouri, she went into shock and sought the help of a military chaplain. She said he told her “it must have been God’s will for her to be raped” and recommended she attend church more often.

Most of the plaintiffs have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental stress problems. They charged the Pentagon with a “systemic failure to stop rape and sexual assault.”The suit names former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his successor, Robert Gates, for failing to “eradicate a well-entrenched misogynistic military culture that permits Command to scoff at rape allegations, threaten victims with courts martial and exercise unfettered discretion to decide to use ‘non-judicial punishment’ to penalize rape and sexual assault.”

The lawsuit specifically cites Rumsfeld, desperate for volunteers to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, for granting “moral waivers” to recruits arrested or convicted of domestic and sexual violence. Despite a federal law making it a felony for such offenders to possess a firearm, he provided an exception to members of the military.Sex crimes, it noted, soared 24 percent in the year before Rumsfeld’s resignation in 2006.

Gates is charged with “failing to take reasonable steps” to protect the plaintiffs from repeated abuse. It notes that he directed the head of the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault and Prevention and Response Office to ignore a congressional subpoena to testify and failed to create a centralized database of sex crimes as mandated by lawmakers.

The current defense secretary’s “failures to act … led to a steady and dramatic increase” in the number of rapes and sexual assaults, rising by 25 percent in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007 and continuing to increase at double digits annually since then.

“Sexual assault is a wider societal problem, and Secretary Gates has been working with the service chiefs to make sure the U.S. military is doing all it can to prevent and respond to it,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said in a statement.

“That means providing more money, personnel, training and expertise, including reaching out to other large institutions such as universities to learn best practices. This is now a command priority, but we clearly still have more work to do in order to ensure all of our service members are safe from abuse.”

The lawsuit cited the Pentagon’s own statistics that reported 3,230 rapes and other sexual assaults in 2009. Because the military acknowledges that 80 percent of victims don’t report the crime, the real number may be more than 16,000.

Moreover, the complaint charges that the Department of Defense “fails to report conviction rates from courts marital, which is critical data needed by Congress to assess whether reforms are being implemented.”Still, the plaintiffs face a high hurdle.

Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said the facts as presented in the complaint are “certainly disturbing” and merit attention from Pentagon leaders. However, he said he is “skeptical that this case, as a case, will gain any traction” in court.

From a legal point of view, he said, it is a steep climb for 17 plaintiffs to argue for systemic abuses in a military of some 2 million people.

“I don’t know that a culture of sexism and misogyny has ever been recognized as a basis” for suing for violations of equal protection, he added. “Not every sexual assault is a violation of equal protection.”

Serial Killer Rodney Alcala Indicted in 2 More Murders.

Serial killer Rodney Alcala, who was convicted in 2010 of torturing and murdering four California women and one girl in the 1970s, has now been indicted in the murders of Ellen Hover, left, and Cornelia “Michel” Crilley.Serial killer Rodney Alcala has been indicted in the murders of two New York women who were found dead in the 1970s, according to published reports.

The women have been identified as Cornelia “Michel” Crilley and Ellen Hover, the New York Daily News and The New York Times reported.

Crilley, a 23-year-old TWA flight attendant, was raped and strangled in 1971. At the time, authorities initially suspected Crilley’s boyfriend was responsible. Authorities now reportedly have forensic evidence that links Alcala to the scene.Hover, also 23, was a Manhattan socialite. In 1977, her body was found on the Rockefeller estate in suburban Westchester County. Investigators found a datebook inside Hover’s apartment that showed she had an appointment with a “John Berger” on the day she was killed. According to police, John Berger is an alias Alcala has used in the past. Reports say he has admitted to knowing Hover but denies killing her.

Alcala, a 66-year-old former U.S. Army clerk, Los Angeles Times typesetter, amateur photographer and UCLA fine arts grad, reportedly has a near-genius IQ of 135. In 1978, he appeared in an episode of the ABC prime-time show “The Dating Game.”

The California native’s future may have been bright at one time, but his criminal record ultimately outshined any of his achievements.Alcala was convicted in February 2010 of torturing and murdering four California women and one girl, 12-year-old Robin Samsoe, in the 1970s. For his crimes, Alcala was sentenced to death.

During the Samsoe investigation, detectives located a Seattle storage locker rented by Alcala and found a cache of more than 1,000 photographs. Suspecting some of the women and children pictured could be additional victims, authorities in California and New York released hundreds of the photos. Since then, dozens of women in the pictures have been identified and are alive, police say.

The Manhattan district attorney’s did not immediately return calls for comment today. Alcala previously declined a request to speak to AOL News.

Crilley’s and Hover’s families are aware of the latest developments in the case.”It’s not really closure for the family, [but] it’s great that it’s happening,” Hover’s cousin Sheila Weller told the Daily News.

Crilley’s former boyfriend, Leon Borstein, told the Daily News he is happy that police have identified a suspect. But, in an interview with The New York Times, Borstein reportedly said he saw no point in prosecuting someone who was already on death row.

“All it does is entertain him … it doesn’t do anything for us,” Borstein told the Times. “He gets to fly out to New York, meet with his lawyers [and] sit in a courtroom for days on end. It certainly alleviates the boredom of sitting in a jail cell.”