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      Megan Thee Stallion Testifies in Tory Lanez Trial. Here’s What to Know.

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      Megan Thee Stallion testified on Tuesday in the assault trial against Mr. Lanez. The case had previously played out on social media and in music released by the rappers.LOS ANGELES — Megan Thee Stallion, the Grammy-winning rapper, took the stand on Tuesday during the assault trial against the rapper Tory Lanez, testifying that she still had nerve damage after he shot her in the feet in the wake of an argument two years ago.The case has played out on social media and in music released by both rappers. On an album released in 2020, more than two months after the encounter, Mr. Lanez rebutted Megan Thee Stallion’s account; she has defended herself on Instagram, in interviews and with her own defiant track.Mr. Lanez, whose real name is Daystar Peterson, could face nearly 23 years of prison if convicted. He faces charges of assault with a semiautomatic handgun; of carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle; and of discharging a firearm with gross negligence.Prosecutors say that in July 2020, in the early morning hours after a party in Los Angeles, Mr. Lanez lashed out at Megan Thee Stallion after she had criticized his rap abilities, firing toward her feet as she walked away from the vehicle they had both been riding in. The defense has disputed that Mr. Lanez fired the shots, suggesting it could have been another woman who they claim was upset that the two rappers had been intimate with each other.On Tuesday, Megan Thee Stallion largely reiterated what she had told reporters and recounted on social media about the encounter, testifying that she had initially misrepresented the events of that night to the police because tensions were high after the murder of George Floyd and she was afraid of how they would respond.“I didn’t want to talk to the officers because I didn’t want to be a snitch,” she testified.Megan Thee Stallion also testified about how the fallout from the encounter has made her depressed and hindered her career. She said that she was a private person who spoke out to defend her name, and that she had been the target of abusive comments on social media.“Because Tory has come out and told so many lies about me, and making this all a sex scandal, people don’t want to touch me,” she said. “It feels like I’m a sick bird.”The shooting occurred just as Megan Thee Stallion’s fame was growing. Months earlier, her collaboration with Beyoncé on a remix of “Savage” became her first No. 1 Billboard hit. That year, the blockbuster song “WAP” — a viral collaboration with Cardi B — turned her into an even bigger star.Here’s what to know about the case.What happened after the shooting?Initially, the details around what happened that night were hazy.Days after the shooting, Megan Thee Stallion — who was born Megan Pete — posted on her Instagram account that she had “suffered gunshot wounds” that required surgery but did not provide more details. But amid surging gossip and speculation, she later said the shooter was Mr. Lanez, who had been arrested and charged with concealing a firearm in the vehicle.Mr. Lanez addressed the situation in rap lyrics that suggested a conflicting account, including, “We both know what happened that night and what I did/But it ain’t what they sayin’.”In October 2020, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office charged Mr. Lanez with assault.Megan Thee Stallion’s career ascended in 2020 thanks to collaborations with Beyoncé on a remix of “Savage” and with Cardi B on the blockbuster “WAP.”Evan Agostini/Invision, via Associated PressWhat has Megan Thee Stallion said?In an interview with CBS’s Gayle King this year, Megan Thee Stallion said that she and a friend had been driving with Mr. Lanez after a party at the home of Kylie Jenner, the beauty mogul, when an argument broke out in the S.U.V.After she exited the vehicle, she said, Mr. Lanez shouted “Dance!” and a sexist slur before shooting at her. He then apologized and offered her and the friend, Kelsey Harris, a million dollars for them to keep quiet about what had happened.When the police arrived, she said, she told officers that her foot injuries had been caused when she stepped on glass.She later addressed her initial decision to withhold information from the police in her song “Shots Fired,” rapping, “If it weren’t for me/Same week, you would have been indicted.”Megan Thee Stallion, 27, has been outspoken about the shooting and what she sees as the broader issues at play, writing in a guest essay in The New York Times that the “skepticism and judgment” that followed her allegations were emblematic of how Black women were “disrespected and disregarded in so many areas of life.”Outside the courthouse on Tuesday, several fans of the rapper voiced their support with a banner that read, “We stand with Megan.”What has Tory Lanez said?Mr. Lanez, 30, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges, has not given interviews about his specific account of that night. But at the start of the trial, his lawyer, George Mgdesyan, said the argument in the car had involved Ms. Harris, a friend of Megan Thee Stallion’s; he said Ms. Harris was angry when she learned that Megan Thee Stallion had been intimate with Mr. Lanez, Rolling Stone reported.On the 2020 album on which he addressed the shooting, which was called “Daystar,” Mr. Lanez rapped, “If you got shot from behind, how can you identify me?”It is unclear whether Mr. Lanez plans to take the stand.What evidence is at the center of the case?Prosecutors have homed in on a text message that they say Ms. Harris sent to Mr. Lanez’s bodyguard that night, writing, “Help” and “Tory shot Meg.” They are also expected to present a text message in which Mr. Lanez apologizes to Megan Thee Stallion after the shooting. The defense has countered that Mr. Lanez did not directly admit to carrying out the shooting, according to The Los Angeles Times.Mr. Mgdesyan also suggested that there was a lack of physical evidence to prove the case against Mr. Lanez beyond a reasonable doubt. He told jurors, The Los Angeles Times reported, that Mr. Lanez’s DNA had not been found on the gun. More

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      Omega X Members Say Their K-pop Agency Mistreated Them

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      A public dispute between band members and the head of their agency has revived concerns about whether South Korean entertainment agencies exploit young musicians.Members of the K-pop group Omega X seemed to be riding high a few weeks ago when their first international tour ended with a successful gig in Los Angeles.But that feeling of triumph was short lived.After the October show, an executive from their management agency screamed at the group at an L.A. hotel and pushed one band member to the ground, footage of the encounter appeared to show. The band members then flew home to Seoul at their own expense and later took their entertainment agency to court.At a hearing on Wednesday, a South Korean judge will consider the request of the group’s 11 members to be released from their multiyear contracts with the agency, Spire Entertainment. Lawyers for the band have said the executive’s behavior in Los Angeles was the latest episode in a yearlong pattern of verbal, physical and sexual abuse. The executive, Kang Seong-hee, resigned last month but has denied any wrongdoing.“I took care of all of them like their mother,” Ms. Kang told The New York Times in a phone interview, adding that Kim Jaehan, 27, the band member who fell at the hotel, had collapsed on his own. She said she hoped the band would resume its normal activities with the agency.Experts on K-pop say the band’s accusations against their agency, if true, would be consistent with other stories from industry insiders and whistleblowers. They say some management companies, especially smaller ones, routinely exploit young artists who are desperate to become K-pop idols by imposing strict controls on their behavior and in some cases subjecting them to verbal and physical abuse.Since the 1990s, “the level of exploitation has been systematized and also normalized because the K-pop industry has become dominant” and more ambitious young people have been drawn to it, said Jin Lee, a scholar of Asian pop cultures and a research fellow at Curtin University in Australia.“Everyone wants to be an idol,” she said.The Fine PrintWorkers in South Korea, a deeply hierarchical society, are increasingly speaking up about bosses who abuse their authority. But experts say that most working K-pop artists don’t publicly criticize their agencies because they fear the consequences of violating their contracts.Omega X onstage during their international tour in October.Omega XKim Youna, an entertainment lawyer in Seoul, said smaller agencies in particular have tended to sign rising musicians to contracts that don’t define work hours or set limits on what the artists can be reasonably asked to do.Regulations governing contracts between artists and their agencies have been around for only about 25 years in South Korea, Ms. Kim said. Other industries in the country have robust labor laws. “In this context, it seems that idols, considered the less powerful parties, have no choice but to suffer a little loss,” she said.Some of the losses are financial. It is common, for example, for agencies to ask artists to pay back the costs of the training they received, such as dance lessons, vocal coaching and other preparation. But there are often questions about how transparently those debts are calculated, said Lee Jongim, a scholar of South Korea’s entertainment industry and the author of “Idol Trainees’ Sweat and Tears.”Aspiring K-pop stars “debut in their teens, but entertainment agents are adults,” she said. “So they start out in a structure in which it is difficult to establish an equal relationship.”Speaking OutSome K-pop musicians have waited until their contracts ended to accuse their agencies of mistreatment.In one example, Heo Min-sun, a member of the former group Crayon Pop, told the YouTube channel Asian Boss in 2019 that the band’s agency had withheld band members’ salaries for a year and half after their debut. She said it had also forced them to go on diets and prohibited them from socializing without the agency’s permission.“Our private lives were strictly controlled. Even if I wanted to make a new friend, I couldn’t,” Ms. Heo said in the 2019 interview. Crayon Pop’s agency, Chrome Entertainment, did not respond to a request for comment.In a 2019 criminal case, two K-pop musicians successfully took legal action against their agency before their contracts had expired.Those musicians — Lee Seok-cheol, now 22, and Lee Seung-hyun, now 20 — are brothers who performed in the boy band The East Light as teenagers. They accused their producer, their agency and its chief executive of assaulting and verbally threatening them. A court fined the agency, Media Line Entertainment, about $15,000 and sentenced the producer to 16 months in prison for child abuse. The chief executive received eight months for aiding and abetting child abuse.Another case, though technically successful, is widely seen as a cautionary tale.Three former members of the group TVXQ struggled for years to appear on television after ending their contract with SM Entertainment, one of South Korea’s most powerful agencies.. The country’s antitrust regulators eventually ordered SM Entertainment to stop pressuring cable channels to blacklist members of the band from appearing on TV.The agency denied the commission’s findings. But CedarBough T. Saeji, an expert on the K-pop industry at Pusan National University, said that the band members had been “unofficially blacklisted from the K-pop industry.” The episode sent “a chilling message to younger idols that crossing a powerful company could be the end of their career, even if they achieve a legal goal,” she added.‘A Lot of Anxiety’After Kim Jaehan’s altercation with Ms. Kang at the hotel in Los Angeles on Oct. 22, a South Korean television network published blurred-out footage of the episode that a bystander had filmed. When the band returned to Seoul, its members took the rare step of creating an Instagram account without permission from their agency, as would normally be required. In another rare step, they aired their allegations of abuse at a news conference.“Every one of us is experiencing a lot of anxiety,” Mr. Kim said at the news conference last month. The band members say that a few months after Omega X debuted in June 2021, Ms. Kang, Spire Entertainment’s chief executive at the time, began habitually making sexual remarks, touching their thighs, hands and faces against their wishes, and regularly forcing them to drink alcohol after rehearsals. Lawyers for the band have also said that Spire, a small agency founded in 2020, ordered each band member pay the agency about $300,000 in debt incurred from their training. ‌So far the band’s lawyers have not filed a criminal complaint or presented any physical evidence to corroborate their accusations, citing concerns that doing so would suggest they were trying to influence the civil proceedings that begin on Wednesday. They said their current focus was on getting the band out of their contract, not pressing charges.In an interview last week, Ms. Kang denied the band members’ accusations. Her request for them to cover her agency’s debts was justified, she added, and she believes that the band members have accused her of abuse in order to justify moving to a larger agency.“In their opinion, our company does not have enough to nurture them,” Ms. Kang said, referring to the company’s financial resources. “So they are conducting a witch hunt.”Looking AheadOmega X’s fate may depend on how the South Korean public reacts to the band’s side of the story, said Ms. Lee, the pop culture scholar. If the dispute escalates and its members can rally more public support, she said, Spire Entertainment may allow them to break their contract.At least two companies that work with Spire abroad have cut ties since the scandal broke: Helix Publicity, which had been responsible for Omega X’s public relations in the United States, and Skiyaki, the company that held the license for Omega X’s activities in Japan. A number of people who worked or volunteered at concert venues on its recent two-month, 16-city tour of the United States and Latin America have also spoken up for Omega X. Gigi Granados, 25, a cosmetologist who attended a show at Palladium Times Square in New York City, said she had witnessed Ms. Kang screaming at members of the band at their hotel after the performance. “No one deserves to be yelled at that way,” she said. More

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      Cardi B Pleads Guilty to Two Misdemeanors in 2018 Strip Club Attacks

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      Four years after being charged, the Bronx rapper, 29, was sentenced to 15 days of community service for her role in two fights at a Queens club.Four years after being charged with felony assault stemming from a pair of strip club brawls, Cardi B, the Bronx rapper and pop star born Belcalis Almanzar, pleaded guilty on Thursday in a Queens court to two misdemeanors.Ms. Almanzar, 29, admitted to orchestrating and participating in the attacks on two employees of Angels in Flushing after offering $5,000 to an associate over Instagram to help her and others confront the pair. The authorities said at the time that the victims, who are sisters, were romantic rivals possibly involved with Ms. Almanzar’s husband, the rapper Offset.With the trial set to begin on Thursday, prosecutors said in court that they had reached a deal with the musician and two co-defendants. Ms. Almanzar agreed to a discharge conditional on 15 days of community service, as well as a three-year order of protection for the victims.“Part of growing up and maturing is being accountable for your actions,” Ms. Almanzar said in a statement sent by a representative after the hearing. “As a mother, it’s a practice that I am trying to instill in my children, but the example starts with me.”She added: “I’ve made some bad decisions in my past that I am not afraid to face and own up to. These moments don’t define me and they are not reflective of who I am now. I’m looking forward to moving past this situation with my family and friends and getting back to the things I love the most — the music and my fans.”Melinda Katz, the Queens district attorney, said in a statement, “No one is above the law. In pleading guilty today, Ms. Belcalis Almanzar and two co-defendants have accepted responsibility for their actions.”As part of her plea, which covered one count of third-degree assault and one count of second-degree reckless endangerment, the rapper was made to confirm details of the fights, which she did quietly.Prosecutors said that on two separate nights in August 2018, Ms. Almanzar arrived at the club after 3 a.m. with others in tow. On one occasion, the group struck the victim, a bartender, pulling her hair, punching her and slamming her head into the bar. Two weeks later, they returned, throwing alcohol and bottles at the first victim’s sister, another bartender.The original indictment in the case included two felonies and 12 charges in all, including harassment, criminal solicitation and conspiracy; the other 10 counts were dismissed on Thursday.A redheaded Ms. Almanzar, wearing a cream-colored Proenza Schouler dress and red-bottomed Louboutin high heels, was joined in court by multiple lawyers, including Drew Findling, a prominent figure in hip-hop circles who is also defending former President Donald J. Trump in a criminal inquiry into election interference in Georgia.Mr. Findling, known to his many rapper clients as the #BillionDollarLawyer, said on the courthouse steps following the plea deal that the resolution allowed Ms. Almanzar to move on.“We’re talking about a life of being happily married with two beautiful children,” he said, pointing also to her charitable giving and commercial success. “There are too many things that she has planned for her family, for her career and for the community. She just felt quite honestly that a three-week jury trial was going to be a distraction.”As for her take on his recent association with former President Trump, Mr. Findling said that the rapper, a vocal Democrat, was one of the first phone calls he got after the news broke. “She is supportive of everything I do,” he said. More

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      Paul Haggis Arrested on Sexual Assault Charges in Italy

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      Haggis, who wrote and directed the Oscar-winning crime drama “Crash,” was accused of assaulting a woman in Ostuni over the course of two days.The Oscar-winning director and writer Paul Haggis was arrested on charges of aggravated sexual violence and aggravated personal injuries in the Southern Italian city of Ostuni on Sunday, according to the local police.According to a statement from the prosecutor’s office in the nearby city of Brindisi, which ordered the arrest, the accuser was not Italian. The statement identifies the man who was arrested as P.H., a Canadian; Vincenzo Leo, the duty officer of the local Italian police, confirmed it was Mr. Haggis.The statement said that after two days of “nonconsensual intercourse,” he had brought the woman to the Papola Casale airport in Brindisi on Friday and left her there “at the first lights of dawn, despite the precarious physical and psychological conditions of the woman.”The airport’s staff and the border police noticed her in the airport in a “confusional state,” assisted her and took her to the local police office, the statement continued. She was then brought to a hospital where she was treated following a protocol used in Italy for victims of violence against women; she subsequently reported the violence to the police.According to the accusations, Mr. Haggis, 69, “would have forced the young woman, that he had met some time before, to endure sexual intercourse.”“I am confident that all allegations will be dismissed against Mr. Haggis,” Priya Chaudhry, a lawyer for Mr. Haggis, said in an email. “He is totally innocent, and willing to fully cooperate with the authorities so the truth comes out quickly.”Mr. Haggis, who won a screenwriting Oscar in 2006 for the crime drama “Crash,” and who wrote acclaimed movies such as “Million Dollar Baby,” was in the southern city to attend the Allora film festival, where he was set to participate in panels and discussions with the audience, starting on June 21, according to the festival’s program.Mr. Haggis was sued for sexual assault in New York in 2017 by a publicist, Haleigh Breest. Ms. Breest accused Mr. Haggis of forcing her to give him oral sex before raping her after a premiere in 2013. Mr. Haggis has contended that the encounter with Ms. Breest was consensual.Following the lawsuit, which is still pending because of delays related to the coronavirus pandemic, three other women accused Mr. Haggis of sexually assaulting them, according to The Associated Press.A lawyer for Mr. Haggis, Christine Lepera, has denied the three other accusations, saying “he did not rape anybody,” according to The A.P.’s report.Mr. Haggis got his start as a TV writer in the 1980s and went on to help create several series, including “Walker, Texas Ranger,” the long-running drama starring Chuck Norris. But he is perhaps best known for his film work, notably “Crash,” the 2005 ensemble drama he directed and co-wrote. The film won best picture at the Academy Awards as well as best original screenplay for Mr. Haggis and Bobby Moresco.In 2009, Mr. Haggis left the Church of Scientology over its support of Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriage passed by California voters and later overturned. In a resignation letter that was circulated in Hollywood, Mr. Haggis wrote that the church’s position was “a stain on the integrity of our organization and a stain on us personally.” In the documentary “Going Clear” and elsewhere, Mr. Haggis has become among the more prominent critics of the church. And he has said that, in response, the church has mounted a campaign of harassment.In a court filing last year, Mr. Haggis asserted that the pending sexual assault lawsuit in New York had essentially frozen his career, leaving him unable to work as a director or producer.“I have had discussions with producers and financiers, but have been repeatedly told that they cannot work with me until I clear my name,” he wrote in the filing, which was submitted as part of a motion requesting that the court set a trial date.Stephanie Goodman contributed reporting. More

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      Harvey Weinstein Facing Indecent Assault Charges in Britain

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      British prosecutors said they authorized criminal charges against Mr. Weinstein for an incident in 1996.The British authorities have authorized criminal charges against Harvey Weinstein on two counts of indecent assault against a woman in 1996 in London, the country’s Crown Prosecution Service announced in a news release Wednesday.Mr. Weinstein, 70, has been convicted of felony sex crimes in New York and is awaiting trial in Los Angeles, where he has been charged with several counts of forcible rape, among other charges.“Charges have been authorized against Harvey Weinstein, 70, following a review of the evidence gathered by the Metropolitan Police in its investigation,” Rosemary Ainslie, the head of the prosecution service’s special crime division, said in a statement.The Metropolitan Police said in a statement that it had gathered evidence in the case, and that Mr. Weinstein was being accused of two counts of indecent assault in London in August, 1996, against a woman who is now in her 50s. Earlier this month a New York appeals court upheld Mr. Weinstein’s 2020 conviction on felony sex crimes, increasing the likelihood that he would serve a significant portion of his 23-year sentence. A lawyer for Mr. Weinstein said at the time that his legal team would ask the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, to review the decision.Mr. Weinstein must be formally charged at a police station in England or Wales, said David Lindsell, a spokesman for the prosecution service. He declined to comment on the possibility of extradition.A lawyer for Mr. Weinstein, Barry Kamins, declined to comment.A spokesman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, Greg Risling, said that Mr. Weinstein would have to stand trial in California before any potential extradition to Britain to face the charges there.Mr. Weinstein was a powerful Hollywood film producer until his downfall in 2017, when The New York Times reported allegations that he had sexually abused women over the course of nearly three decades. In the aftermath, dozens of women came forward to accuse Mr. Weinstein of sexual misconduct or assault; he maintained that he had only engaged in consensual sexual activity.The accusations spurred an international reckoning around sexual assault and harassment, with women in many fields coming forward with public allegations against high-profile men in what became known as the #MeToo movement. In 2018, Mr. Weinstein was arrested in New York City on sex crime charges. He stood trial in 2020, and a jury found him guilty of two felonies — a criminal sexual act in the first degree and third-degree rape — and acquitted him on two charges of predatory sexual assault.In Los Angeles, Mr. Weinstein was indicted on charges that he sexually assaulted several women in separate incidents between 2004 and 2013. He was transferred to California to face the charges and pleaded not guilty. This is the second time in recent weeks that prosecutors in Britain announced that they had authorized criminal charges against a prominent figure from the American entertainment industry accused of sexual misconduct. Last month, the Crown Prosecution Service said it had authorized charges against the actor Kevin Spacey on four counts of sexual assault against three men. Mr. Spacey said that he would voluntarily travel to Britain to face the charges. More

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      A Woman Who Says Bill Cosby Molested Her as a Teen Begins Testifying

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      Judy Huth, who is suing Mr. Cosby on sexual assault grounds in a civil case, took the stand in California to begin describing an encounter with the entertainer that took place decades ago.Judy Huth took the stand in Santa Monica on Monday to describe a moment in 1975 when, as a teenager, she said she met Bill Cosby in a California park where he was making a film.Days later, at his invitation, she said, she and her friend went along to his tennis club and then ultimately to the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles.“It was an adventure,” Ms. Huth said. “We were kids. He was a celebrity.”But later that day, the man she had admired as a famous comedian molested her, she said, after taking her to an isolated room at the mansion. Ms. Huth said she was 16 years old at the time.Mr. Cosby has denied he sexually assaulted Ms. Huth or any of the other women who have come forward in recent years to accuse him of sexual misconduct. He has said any relationship was consensual.But Ms. Huth, 64, has sued Mr. Cosby for sexual assault, and her account, which was not finished on Monday, is the centerpiece of her case against the entertainer, which completed its fourth day of testimony. Ms. Huth testified that she and her friend had been impressed when they saw Mr. Cosby — along with other movie stars — in a park in San Marino on the set of the film “Let’s Do It Again.” According to her account, Mr. Cosby gave the two teenagers alcohol at a house where he was staying, telling them to drink if he bested them in a game of pool, and then asked them to follow him in a car to the mansion. The Sexual Assault Cases Against Bill CosbyAfter Bill Cosby’s 2018 criminal conviction for sexual assault was overturned, the first civil case accusing him of sexual misconduct has reached trial.The Civil Trial: Judy Huth has accused Mr. Cosby of assaulting her as a teenager. She sued in 2014, but the case had been on hold while he was criminally prosecuted.Criminal Conviction: In 2018, a jury found the disgraced entertainer guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home near 14 years earlier,His Release From Prison: After the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the conviction, Mr. Cosby was released from prison on June 30, 2021.The Ruling: The conviction was overturned on the grounds that prosecutors violated Mr. Cosby’s rights by reneging on a promise not to charge him.“Are you girls ready for your surprise?” he said, according to Ms. Huth. “I had no clue what it could be,” she said. Her lawyers showed the jury a photograph of Ms. Huth standing with Mr. Cosby in the game room at the mansion, taken, she told the court, “before he molested me. It happened 15 minutes after.”Ms. Huth’s testimony was interrupted by the end of the court day before she was able to discuss what she has, in court papers for her case, accused him of doing: placing his hand down her pants and then forcing her to fondle him.The impact of that event, her lawyers have told the court, included depression and anxiety. She had experienced a happy childhood, she said, growing up in Temple City, Calif. But her lawyers said that the incident had derailed her and that she didn’t earn her high school diploma until she was 60.Mr. Cosby’s lawyers have disputed Ms. Huth’s account, suggesting that their meeting actually happened years later, when she was an older, and willing, visitor to the mansion who by her own account did not flee after the encounter but stayed on for hours, swimming in the pool and watching a movie.Ms. Huth’s lawsuit, filed in 2014, was largely on hold while prosecutors in Pennsylvania pursued Mr. Cosby, 84, criminally on charges that he had sexually assaulted Andrea Constand, a former Temple University employee.But Mr. Cosby’s 2018 conviction in that case was overturned last year by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on due process grounds, and Mr. Cosby walked free after serving nearly three years of a three- to 10-year sentence.Mr. Cosby, flanked by two of his lawyers, outside his home in the Philadelphia suburbs after being freed from prison last year. Mark Makela/ReutersEarlier on Monday, Mr. Cosby’s lawyers had cross-examined Donna Samuelson, Ms. Huth’s friend who accompanied her to the mansion. She had told the court last week that Ms. Huth had been distraught after her encounter with Mr. Cosby but that Ms. Samuelson persuaded her to stay.Mr. Cosby’s defense tried to undermine the credibility of that account, suggesting that the two friends had coordinated their stories before Ms. Huth first went to the police in 2014. (Prosecutors ultimately declined to file criminal charges because the statute of limitations had passed.)But Ms. Samuelson said she had simply misremembered when she had initially reported to authorities that Ms. Huth was 15 at the time, not 16 as Ms. Huth now says.Mr. Cosby’s lawyers showed a layout of the game room at the Playboy Mansion and said that Ms. Samuelson had been wrong to say a person could access the bathroom only through an adjoining bedroom.Mr. Cosby’s lawyers also said it was impossible for Ms. Samuelson to have played the arcade game “Donkey Kong” there in 1975, as she has testified in a deposition. The game was not released until six years later.Ms. Samuelson said she meant that she had played a game like Donkey Kong.She denied that she and Ms. Huth had coordinated their accounts before Ms. Huth went to the police in 2014. “We were not putting anything together,” she said. “We were just telling our memories.”Jennifer Bonjean, a lawyer for Mr. Cosby, also brought up the subject of race in a way that suggested Ms. Samuelson was motivated to take down Mr. Cosby because he is Black. She said, for example, that Ms. Samuelson, in her pre-trial deposition, had described the décor of his house in Los Angeles as “jungly” and “African,” referring to the leaf print on the wallpaper.“It wasn’t atypical for people in your friend group to use racial slurs like the N-word,” the lawyer asserted.Ms. Samuelson said she never did that.“I am not racist,” she said.One of Mr. Cosby’s lawyers, Jennifer Bonjean.Lucy Nicholson/ReutersMr. Cosby’s lawyers have noted in court proceedings that Ms. Huth’s recollection of when her encounter took place has changed: While she initially said it had happened in 1974, when she was 15, she more recently concluded it was in 1975, when she was 16. The law in California classified a 16-year-old as a minor. In disputing Ms. Huth’s account, Mr. Cosby’s lawyers have suggested they met years after the time she said they did, when she was no longer a minor.Last week, Ms. Huth’s legal team introduced two other women who testified about encounters with Mr. Cosby. Kimberly Burr testified that she was 14 years old when he tried to kiss her in his trailer on the set of “Let’s Do It Again” in 1975 as well.Margie Shapiro testified that she was 19 that year when Mr. Cosby met her at the doughnut shop where she was working and invited her to the set of another movie he was filming in Los Angeles. Later that day, according to her testimony, she went to his house and then they went to the Playboy Mansion, where, she said, he drugged and assaulted her, an accusation that Mr. Cosby denies.Mr. Cosby is not expected to testify at the trial, having asserted his Fifth Amendment rights. But lawyers for Ms. Huth deposed him several years ago, and a portion of that testimony is expected to be presented in court before the conclusion of the trial, which is expected to last through the week. More

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      Kevin Spacey to Face Sexual Assault Charges in Britain

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      The actor said in a statement to “Good Morning America” that he will seek to prove his innocence against the charges.The actor Kevin Spacey said on Tuesday that he will voluntarily travel to Britain to face criminal sexual assault charges, allowing the authorities there to formally charge him without having to pursue extradition proceedings.Last week, Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service announced that law enforcement had authorized the charges, of four counts of sexual assault against three men, as well as one charge of “causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.” But Mr. Spacey, 62, cannot be formally charged unless he enters England or Wales.A representative for Mr. Spacey told the ABC News show “Good Morning America” in a statement that he would travel to Britain to defend himself.“While I am disappointed with their decision to move forward, I will voluntarily appear in the U.K. as soon as can be arranged and defend myself against these charges, which I am confident will prove my innocence,” the statement said.The charges concern three complainants. The alleged incidents date from March 2005, August 2008 and April 2013. During those years, Mr. Spacey was the artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London. All the incidents occurred in London, except one from 2013, which occurred in Gloucestershire, England. The Metropolitan Police said that one of the men was now “in his 40s” and that the other two were now in their 30s, but did not provide their exact ages.A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service declined to comment on Tuesday.In his statement, Mr. Spacey also said, “I very much appreciate the Crown Prosecution Service’s statement in which they carefully reminded the media and the public that I am entitled to a fair trial, and innocent until proven otherwise.”The first person to publicly accuse Mr. Spacey, a two-time Academy Award winner, of sexual misconduct was the actor Anthony Rapp, who said in 2017 that Mr. Spacey had made unwanted sexual advances toward him in the 1980s, when he was 14 years old. Mr. Spacey is currently defending himself in a lawsuit filed by Mr. Rapp in New York.After Mr. Rapp’s allegations were made public in a BuzzFeed article, 20 people who worked with Mr. Spacey at the Old Vic theater in London, where he was artistic director for 11 years, accused him of inappropriate behavior. The theater, which said last week that it could not comment on ongoing criminal proceedings, commissioned an independent investigation, which Mr. Spacey did not take part in, and issued a report that concluded that “his stardom and status at the Old Vic may have prevented people, and in particular junior staff or young actors, from feeling that they could speak up or raise a hand for help.” More

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      Kevin Spacey Facing Sexual Assault Charges in Britain

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      British prosecutors said that they had authorized criminal charges against Mr. Spacey, 62, for four counts of sexual assault. He cannot be formally charged unless he enters England or Wales. LONDON — The British authorities have authorized criminal charges against Kevin Spacey on four counts of sexual assault against three men, the country’s Crown Prosecution Service announced in a news release on Thursday.Rosemary Ainslie, head of the service’s special crime division, said in the release that the service had also authorized one charge against Mr. Spacey, 62, of “causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.”The authorization of charges followed a review of the evidence collected by London’s police force. Mr. Spacey cannot be formally charged unless he enters England or Wales, a spokesman for the service said in a telephone interview. The spokesman declined to comment on whether the service would pursue extradition proceedings if that did not occur. The news release said the charges concerned three complainants. The incidents dated from March 2005, August 2008 and April 2013, it added — a time when Mr. Spacey was artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London. All the incidents occurred in London, except one from 2013, which occurred in Gloucestershire, England. The Metropolitan Police said that one of the men was now “in his 40s” and that the other two were now in their 30s, but did not provide their exact ages.Representatives for Mr. Spacey did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The first person to publicly accuse Mr. Spacey of sexual misconduct was the actor Anthony Rapp, who said in 2017 that Mr. Spacey had made unwanted sexual advances toward him in the 1980s, when he was 14 years old.Soon after that a former television anchor came forward to accuse Mr. Spacey of sexually assaulting her son, and then 20 people who worked with Mr. Spacey at the Old Vic theater in London, where he was artistic director for 11 years, accused him of inappropriate behavior. The theater commissioned an independent investigation, which Mr. Spacey did not take part in, and issued a report that concluded that “his stardom and status at the Old Vic may have prevented people, and in particular junior staff or young actors, from feeling that they could speak up or raise a hand for help.”The report said that the theater had not been able to independently verify the allegations. But some actors and members of the staff did go public. One actor, Roberto Cavazos, wrote on Facebook that he “had a couple of nasty encounters with Spacey that were close to being called harassment” at the theater. “It seems that it only took a male under 30 to make Mr. Spacey feel free to touch us,” Mr. Cavazos wrote.The Old Vic said in a statement that it could not comment on ongoing criminal proceedings. In 2018, Mr. Spacey was charged with the sexual assault of the television anchor’s 18-year-old son in Nantucket, Mass. Prosecutors dropped the case when the accuser invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to continue testifying.A massage therapist sued Mr. Spacey in California in 2019, accusing him of groping and trying to kiss him before offering him oral sex during a massage. The accuser died unexpectedly ahead of the trial and the case was dismissed when his estate dropped the lawsuit.Mr. Spacey is a two-time Academy Award winner. He won the best actor Oscar in 2000 for his work in “American Beauty,” and in 1996 he won best supporting actor for “The Usual Suspects.” He was also a prominent stage actor, winning a Tony Award in 1991 as a featured actor in “Lost in Yonkers,” and he was the host of the Tony Awards in 2017. But he had a rapid fall from grace after the accusations by Mr. Rapp, who has an ongoing lawsuit against him, which were followed by more accusations. After Mr. Rapp’s allegations were first published in BuzzFeed, Mr. Spacey released a statement saying that he did not recall the episode but apologized for what he said “would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.” In court papers, Mr. Spacey denied Mr. Rapp’s allegations that when Mr. Rapp was underage, Mr. Spacey had grabbed his buttocks and lifted him onto a bed.Mr. Spacey appeared in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday for a hearing about the proper venue for Mr. Rapp’s lawsuit. As he left the courthouse, Mr. Spacey declined to acknowledge reporters’ questions about the developments in Britain, according to The New York Post. Mr. Spacey leaving the federal courthouse in Manhattan on Thursday, where there was a hearing about a civil lawsuit he is facing.John Minchillo/Associated PressTV and film producers started dropping Mr. Spacey from projects after Mr. Rapp went public and more allegations followed, including from the Netflix political drama “House of Cards,” which finished its run without the actor. But more recently, he has found roles in smaller films, including an Italian feature and an American thriller.In January, Croatian newspapers reported that Mr. Spacey was shooting a movie in the country in which he played Franjo Tudjman, the onetime Communist general who led Croatia to independence. This month, Deadline reported that he had signed up for a historical drama called “1242 — Gateway to the West” scheduled to start shooting in Hungary and Mongolia in October. The movie would tell the story of one of Genghis Khan’s grandsons. It was being sold at the Cannes Film Festival, Deadline added. His new American thriller was also being sold at Cannes, according to Rolling Stone.Alex Marshall More