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    Haley Joel Osment Ordered to Attend A.A. After Ski Resort Arrest

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    The actor was charged in April with public intoxication and possession of cocaine and was recorded using the word “Nazi” and an antisemitic slur during his arrest. He later apologized.A judge has ordered the actor Haley Joel Osment to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and therapy sessions for the next six months as part of a deal to dispose of charges of public intoxication and cocaine possession after he insulted the police.Mr. Osment, who rose to fame as the child actor of “Sixth Sense” in 1999, was arrested in April at a ski resort in Mono County, Calif. Police footage of the arrest showed Mr. Osment refusing to answer questions from officers. He also asserted that he was being tortured and kidnapped by a “Nazi” and used an antisemitic slur while addressing an officer. Later he apologized for his words and said he had experienced a blackout.At a court appearance on Monday, a judge granted Mr. Osment’s request for a one-year diversion from prosecution, saying he would dismiss the charges if over the next six months the actor obeys all laws, attends three A.A. meetings a week and meets with his therapist twice a week.Diversion is an alternative procedure in criminal cases in many states that allows certain defendants to avoid prosecution and a criminal record by agreeing to complete a rehabilitation program and a period of probation.David Anderson, the Mono County district attorney, said in a statement that his office disagreed with the judge’s decision. “Based on Mr. Osment’s prior D.U.I. conviction, as well as his slurs toward the arresting officer, my office did not believe diversion was appropriate,” Mr. Anderson said.A representative for Mr. Osment did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. He is scheduled to reappear in court in January, when the court will review his compliance with the orders. If he does not complete the diversion program, criminal proceedings will be restarted.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Real Story of ‘Cocaine Bear’

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      Nearly 40 years after a 175-pound black bear found and ingested cocaine in a Georgia forest, the drug binge has inspired a movie.The trailer for a new movie called “Cocaine Bear” was released on Wednesday, and the film’s title is not a metaphor or clever wordplay: The movie is about a bear high on cocaine.The bloody spree that follows the bear’s cocaine binge, as depicted in the trailer, is fictional, but the story about a high bear is very real. Its lore is likely to grow with the movie, which was directed by Elizabeth Banks and is set for a Feb. 24 release.“Cocaine Bear” stars Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr. and Ray Liotta, who died in May, in one of his final film roles. It depicts the bear’s drug-induced trail of terror and the victims he leaves behind.The real story is less bloody.It all began, as you might guess, in the 1980s. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced in December 1985 that a 175-pound black bear had “died of an overdose of cocaine after discovering a batch of the drug,” according to a three-sentence item from United Press International that appeared in The New York Times.A United Press International item on the cocaine bear appeared in The New York Times in December 1985.“The cocaine was apparently dropped from a plane piloted by Andrew Thornton, a convicted drug smuggler who died Sept. 11 in Knoxville, Tenn., because he was carrying too heavy a load while parachuting,” U.P.I. reported. “The bureau said the bear was found Friday in northern Georgia among 40 opened plastic containers with traces of cocaine.”The bear was found dead in the mountains of Fannin County, Ga., just south of the Tennessee border.“There’s nothing left but bones and a big hide,” Gary Garner of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation told The Associated Press at the time.Dr. Kenneth Alonso, the state’s chief medical examiner at the time, said after an autopsy in December 1985 that the bear had absorbed three or four grams of cocaine into its blood stream, although it may have eaten more, The Associated Press reported that month.Today, the very same bear is said to be on display in Lexington, Ky., at the Kentucky for Kentucky Fun Mall. The mall said in an August 2015 blog post that workers there wanted to know what happened to the bear and found out it had been stuffed. The blog post says the stuffed bear was at one point owned by the country singer Waylon Jennings, who kept it in his home in Las Vegas, before it was delivered to the store. (The New York Times could not independently confirm this account.)What happened to the bear in its final days, or hours, after the cocaine binge is a mystery, but the origins of the cocaine are not.Mr. Thornton was a known drug smuggler and a former police officer. He was found dead the morning of Sept. 11, 1985, in the backyard of a house in Knoxville, Tenn., wearing a parachute and Gucci loafers. He also had several weapons and a bag containing about 35 kilograms of cocaine, The Knoxville News Sentinel reported.A key in Mr. Thornton’s pocket matched the tail number of a wrecked plane that was found in Clay County, N.C., and based on Mr. Thornton’s history of drug smuggling, investigators guessed there was more cocaine nearby, The News Sentinel reported. The investigators searched the surrounding area and found more than 300 pounds of cocaine in a search that lasted several months.They also found the dead bear. More

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      ‘Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy’ Review: A Brisk Look Back at a Crisis

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy’ Review: A Brisk Look Back at a CrisisVeteran documentarian Stanley Nelson crafts a somewhat cursory primer on the 1980s crack epidemic.A scene from the documentary “Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy.”Credit…NetflixJan. 12, 2021, 5:18 p.m. ETCrack: Cocaine, Corruption & ConspiracyDirected by Stanley NelsonDocumentary, Crime, History1h 29mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.As its alliterative mouthful of a title suggests, the new Netflix documentary “Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy” takes on a many-headed beast. Racial injustice, economic inequities, police corruption, media ethics and foreign-policy scandals are all crammed — a bit too cursorily — into Stanley Nelson’s brisk primer on the 1980s crack epidemic.[embedded content]Told in eight chapters, the film begins with some scene-setting bits of archival footage. Speeches by President Ronald Reagan and clips from the 1987 drama “Wall Street” capture the era’s free-market capitalism, while its underside is illustrated by images of impoverished inner cities and the hip-hop that emerged from there. Former dealers explain that crack, a cheaper and more potent variant of cocaine, offered destitute youth a get-rich-quick scheme. The drug suddenly became more available than ever in the United States in the ’80s, which the movie links to shady C.I.A. dealings during the Iran-contra affair.In the film’s strongest moments, former peddlers, users, journalists and scholars unravel the narratives, often propelled by the media, that led to a disproportionate targeting of people of color during the war on drugs. A dealer recalls with horror how D.E.A. agents persuaded him to lure a teenager into buying crack in front of the White House just so President George H.W. Bush could have a cautionary tale to use in a televised speech.But Nelson tries to cover too much ground too fast, leading to some tonal fuzziness: In a too-brief segment on Black women’s exploitation during the crack era, a dealer’s seemingly amused recollection of how women would trade sexual favors for a hit goes oddly uncontextualized. A narrower focus might have allowed the film to better tease out such knotty material.Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & ConspiracyNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. Watch on Netflix.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More