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    Monica Getz, Advocate for Divorce Court Reform, Dies at 90

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    Her troubled marriage to the jazz star Stan Getz led to a headline-making divorce case. The result of the trial gave her a cause to fight for.Monica Getz, whose tempestuous 24-year marriage to the jazz star Stan Getz was whipsawed by his addictions and who, after losing a protracted legal fight to save the marriage, became an advocate for divorce court reform, died on Jan. 5 in Irvington, N.Y. She was 90.Her son Nicolaus Getz said the cause of her death, in a hospital, was bile duct cancer.The Swedish-born Ms. Getz was a student at George Washington University when Mr. Getz, one of the most revered jazz saxophonists of the 20th century, met her backstage at a campus concert and pursued her even though he was married. When they wed in 1956, the actress Donna Reed was the maid of honor at the nuptials in Las Vegas.The Getzes lived in a 27-room mansion called Shadowbrook, overlooking the Hudson River in Tarrytown, N.Y. They bought it in the mid-1960s when Mr. Getz’s fame was at an apex as a result of his bossa nova recordings: the album “Jazz Samba,” with the guitarist Charlie Byrd, and the hit single “The Girl From Ipanema,” on which his mellifluous tenor sax backed the breathy singing of Astrud Gilberto.Drugs and alcohol, however, created havoc in the Getzes’ marriage. Mr. Getz had begun using heroin at 16 and was arrested two years before the marriage for attempting to rob a pharmacy to get narcotics. At the insistence of his wife, a teetotaler, he would seek medical help and enter rehabilitation programs, but relapses invariably followed.Stan and Monica Getz in 1975.via Getz familyAt the couple’s divorce trial in 1987, Mr. Getz said he often drank to the point of blacking out. “I have a discography of 2,010 records,” he said, but “some of them I can’t even remember making.”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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      Chris Brown’s Concerts Draw Protest in South Africa

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      Women’s rights activists have petitioned for the singer to be denied a visa for two shows in South Africa, where gender-based violence is high.After Chris Brown announced that he would be performing in Johannesburg, tickets for the city’s 94,000-capacity FNB Stadium sold out in under two hours. A second show was swiftly added.Nearly as quickly came a protest against Brown, who has faced allegations of violence and harassment of women including his guilty plea on charges that he assaulted Rihanna, his then-girlfriend, in 2009. Women for Change, a South African nonprofit, started a petition to block Brown’s performances on Dec. 14 and 15. The organization presented the petition, which received over 50,000 signatures, to the country’s Departments of Home Affairs and of Sports, Arts and Culture, asking that Brown be denied a visa.The singer’s planned return has particular resonance in South Africa, where women are killed at a rate five times higher than the global average, with 60.1 percent of those murders committed by an intimate partner, according to a study by the South African Medical Research Council. “We aim to send a clear message that South Africa will not celebrate individuals with a history of violence against women,” Sabrina Walter, the founder of Women for Change, said in an interview.Brown and his representatives have not addressed the protest, but in October, as the group spread the #MuteChrisBrown hashtag on social media, the singer seemed to troll the organization by writing, “Can’t wait to come,” under one of its Instagram posts. Walter said the reply triggered a wave of online harassment from Brown’s followers, including death threats against her and her team. It was not the first time Brown used his fame to rally against detractors. He has challenged other celebrities who refer to allegations made against him, and in February used Instagram to accuse the NBA of bowing to sponsor pressure to disinvite him from participating in an event related to its All-Star game. In 2019, Brown was released without charges after being accused of aggravated rape in France. He then sold T-shirts that read “This Bitch Lyin’” online.In the years since his 2009 arrest, Brown has been accused a number of times of violence against women, including throwing a rock through his mother’s car window in 2013 and punching a woman at a Las Vegas nightclub in 2016. In 2017, his ex-girlfriend Karrueche Tran obtained a temporary restraining order, citing harassment, physical violence, intimidation and death threats during and after their on-again-off-again relationship, which lasted from 2011 to 2015. In 2022, a judge dismissed a lawsuit that accused Brown of drugging and raping a woman on a yacht owned by Sean Combs.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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      Jonathan Majors Settles Assault and Defamation Lawsuit by Ex-Girlfriend

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      Mr. Majors was criminally convicted last year of assaulting and harassing Grace Jabbari, who then sued him in March.The actor Jonathan Majors and his ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari have settled the assault and defamation lawsuit that she filed against him in March, a lawyer for Ms. Jabbari announced on Friday.Mr. Majors, a formerly ascendant Hollywood star known for his work in “Creed III” and “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” was criminally convicted last year of assaulting and harassing Ms. Jabbari, a British dancer and movement coach who was his girlfriend for two years. In April, he was sentenced to probation and a year of domestic violence counseling.The civil suit, which was filed in the Southern District of New York, was dropped in a court filing on Thursday by lawyers for both sides. The lawsuit said Mr. Majors had been violent toward Ms. Jabbari in New York, Los Angeles and London, including in one instance that left her with a head injury. It also said that he had repeatedly threatened to kill her.“Grace Jabbari has exhibited tremendous courage throughout this very long and difficult process,” her lawyer, Brittany Henderson, said in a statement. “As a result of her commitment to justice, the lawsuit that she filed against Jonathan Majors has been favorably settled. We hope that she can finally put this chapter behind her and move forward with her head held high.”Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.A lawyer for Mr. Majors did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In an interview after Mr. Majors’s criminal conviction, the actor told ABC, speaking of Ms. Jabbari, that “I was reckless with her heart, not with her body.” He added, “My hands have never struck a woman.”Ms. Jabbari’s lawsuit said that his interview was part of what it called “an extensive media campaign smearing” her. His goal, the suit said, was “convincing the world that Grace is not a victim of domestic abuse.”In February, in an article in The New York Times, two other previous girlfriends of Mr. Majors accused him of being controlling and emotionally abusive, and one accused him of being physically violent. Mr. Majors denied that he physically abused anyone.After Mr. Majors was convicted, Marvel Studios parted ways with the actor, who had been the villain Kang the Conqueror in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” with plans to reprise that role. Over the summer, Mr. Majors was cast as the lead in an independent movie, his first role since the conviction. More

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      What to Know About the Lawsuits Against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs

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      The music mogul, who faces federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges, has been accused in civil court of raping and drugging people. He has denied the allegations.In November 2023, the R&B singer Cassie filed a lawsuit against the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, her former record label head and boyfriend, accusing him of rape, of forcing her to participate in sexual encounters he called “freak-offs” and of ongoing physical abuse for about a decade. Mr. Combs, who is also known as Puff Daddy or Diddy, has “vehemently” denied the allegations.Over the following months, more than 20 additional lawsuits were filed against Mr. Combs — including more than half of them after he was indicted on federal charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution in September. He has pleaded not guilty and remains detained in a Brooklyn jail; the trial is scheduled for May 5.The Lawsuits Against Sean Combs, Known as DiddyOCTOBER 202411 Lawsuits From Anonymous Plaintiffs in federal court in New YorkA legal team led by Tony Buzbee, a personal injury lawyer in Houston who has used a phone hotline, Instagram and a news conference to solicit clients with claims against Mr. Combs, filed six suits alleging sexual assaults from 1995 to 2021, followed by five additional suits alleging sexual assaults from 2000 to 2022.Tony Buzbee, a Houston lawyer, held a news conference to announce he had a large number of individuals with claims against Mr. Combs — and to solicit more.Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle, via Associated PressThe accusations: In two suits from the first batch of filings, women accused Mr. Combs of raping them at parties in New York City; one plaintiff said Mr. Combs raped her in 1995 at a promotional event for a music video by the Notorious B.I.G. Four of the plaintiffs are men, including one who said he was working security at a White Party in the Hamptons in 2006 when Mr. Combs drugged him, pushed him into a van and raped him. Another man accused Mr. Combs of groping his genitals at a 1998 White Party, when the plaintiff was 16. A third man’s suit involves a 2008 encounter in a stockroom at Macy’s, where he said Mr. Combs forced his penis into the plaintiff’s mouth.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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      Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Streaming Numbers Grow as His Legal Woes Pile Up

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      The embattled music mogul is facing federal sex trafficking charges and a slew of lawsuits. Curious listeners and fans are keeping his catalog in rotation.In the 11 months since the singer Cassie accused Sean Combs in a lawsuit of sexual assault and years of physical abuse, the mogul’s once-booming music career has largely fallen apart.His songs have vanished from radio playlists. He became a pariah at the Grammy Awards, where he once held court. And his business interests — including stakes in a media network and a popular liquor brand — have collapsed. At least 17 more lawsuits have been filed against Mr. Combs alleging misconduct, and last month, he was indicted in New York on federal charges including sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. He has pleaded not guilty and is appealing his detention in a Brooklyn jail.But through it all, one part of Mr. Combs’s music business has remained steady, and even seen some growth: the popularity of his songs on streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music.Over the last year, as Mr. Combs, who is also known as Diddy and Puff Daddy, faced a drumbeat of negative stories in the news media — like the raids on his homes by federal agents in March, and a leaked security camera video in May that showed him brutally assaulting Cassie in a hotel in 2016 — the number of people who follow him on Spotify has steadily grown. That figure has climbed from about 1.5 million late last year to 1.8 million now, an increase of about 15 percent, according to Chartmetric, which tracks data from streaming music and social media.Recently the number of clicks for Mr. Combs’s songs have shot up dramatically. In the week before his arrest on Sept. 16, his catalog had about 3.2 million streams on services in the United States; in the weeks following, that figure rose about 50 percent to 4.8 million, according to Luminate, which supplies the data for Billboard’s charts. (In the most recent chart week, the number dipped a bit to 4.3 million.) On social media, Mr. Combs’s follower count has fluctuated, depending on the platform, but support on TikTok has been strong, where the hashtag #FreeDiddy has 12,000 uses.In the music business, this has become a familiar phenomenon of the streaming era. A household-name star — like R. Kelly, Marilyn Manson or Michael Jackson — comes under harsh scrutiny over allegations of sexual misconduct, and may temporarily suffer in the broader cultural marketplace, but maintains steady streaming numbers.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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      Sean Combs’s Legal Woes Are Growing. So Are His Streaming Numbers.

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      The embattled music mogul is facing federal sex trafficking charges and a slew of lawsuits. Curious listeners and fans are keeping his catalog in rotation.In the 11 months since the singer Cassie accused Sean Combs in a lawsuit of sexual assault and years of physical abuse, the mogul’s once-booming music career has largely fallen apart.His songs have vanished from radio playlists. He became a pariah at the Grammy Awards, where he once held court. And his business interests — including stakes in a media network and a popular liquor brand — have collapsed. At least 17 more lawsuits have been filed against Mr. Combs alleging misconduct, and last month, he was indicted in New York on federal charges including sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. He has pleaded not guilty and is appealing his detention in a Brooklyn jail.But through it all, one part of Mr. Combs’s music business has remained steady, and even seen some growth: the popularity of his songs on streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music.Over the last year, as Mr. Combs, who is also known as Diddy and Puff Daddy, faced a drumbeat of negative stories in the news media — like the raids on his homes by federal agents in March, and a leaked security camera video in May that showed him brutally assaulting Cassie in a hotel in 2016 — the number of people who follow him on Spotify has steadily grown. That figure has climbed from about 1.5 million late last year to 1.8 million now, an increase of about 15 percent, according to Chartmetric, which tracks data from streaming music and social media.Recently the number of clicks for Mr. Combs’s songs have shot up dramatically. In the week before his arrest on Sept. 16, his catalog had about 3.2 million streams on services in the United States; in the weeks following, that figure rose about 50 percent to 4.8 million, according to Luminate, which supplies the data for Billboard’s charts. (In the most recent chart week, the number dipped a bit to 4.3 million.) On social media, Mr. Combs’s follower count has fluctuated, depending on the platform, but support on TikTok has been strong, where the hashtag #FreeDiddy has 12,000 uses.In the music business, this has become a familiar phenomenon of the streaming era. A household-name star — like R. Kelly, Marilyn Manson or Michael Jackson — comes under harsh scrutiny over allegations of sexual misconduct, and may temporarily suffer in the broader cultural marketplace, but maintains steady streaming numbers.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

    • 138 Shares139 Views

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      Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Sex Trafficking Trial Is Set for May 5

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      The music mogul, wearing tan jail clothes at a court hearing, waved and smiled at six of his children and his mother in the gallery.Sean Combs, the embattled music mogul, is scheduled to stand trial next May in New York, a federal judge said at a hearing on Thursday.Judge Arun Subramanian of Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York, who was recently assigned to the case, set May 5 as the start of Mr. Combs’s trial on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.Mr. Combs, 54, has been held in a federal detention center in Brooklyn for the past three weeks after being arrested at a New York hotel and then twice denied bail. He will remain in jail until the trial, pending another appeal that his lawyers filed this week.Mr. Combs was present at the hearing on Thursday. Wearing tan jail clothes, he walked into the courtroom waving and smiling at his family assembled in the gallery, including his mother and six of his children, and he embraced some of his lawyers.The hearing had been set as a routine scheduling matter. But it came one day after Mr. Combs’s lawyers filed a motion in which they accused government agents of leaking footage of Mr. Combs assaulting his former girlfriend Cassie to CNN. Without citing direct evidence, the lawyers theorized in court papers that the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that raided Mr. Combs’s homes in March, had been behind the leak. They said they might ask for the video to be barred as evidence at the trial.Emily A. Johnson, one of the prosecutors, commented briefly at the hearing about the defense’s accusation of leaks, saying, “The government believes the motion is baseless and it is simply a means to exclude a damning piece of evidence.” She said the government would be filing a response to the defense’s motion.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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      Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Lawyers Accuse Government of Leaking Cassie Assault Video

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      The hip-hop mogul’s legal team said in a filing on Wednesday that it may ask for the widely published video to be barred from his trial.Lawyers for Sean Combs, the hip-hop mogul who is battling federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges, accused the government on Wednesday of leaking hotel surveillance footage of him brutally beating his former girlfriend to CNN, saying that they may ask for the widely published video to be barred from his trial.Prosecutors have made clear in court papers that the video — which shows Mr. Combs assaulting the singer Cassie in a hotel hallway in 2016 — is a key piece of evidence in their case. The surveillance footage was published by CNN in May, prompting Mr. Combs to apologize publicly for “inexcusable” behavior.It has never been clear how the footage made its way to the news organization, but in the court filing on Wednesday, lawyers for Mr. Combs, who has pleaded not guilty and has vehemently denied the criminal charges, accused the Department of Homeland Security, which executed raids of the defendant’s homes in March, of being responsible for the leak.“The videotape was leaked to CNN for one reason alone: to mortally wound the reputation and the prospect of Sean Combs successfully defending himself against these allegations,” the lawyers, Marc Agnifilo and Teny Geragos, wrote.The court filing cited a federal rule of criminal procedure that prohibits prosecutors or government agents from disclosing matters occurring before a grand jury.The lawyers did not cite direct evidence that Homeland Security officials had leaked the tape. But they accused the agency of a series of leaks, including in anonymous comments to The New York Post, that they said “all but ensured” that the grand jury and a potential trial jury would be tainted. The lawyers asked for a hearing to determine the government’s culpability in the leaks.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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      Drugs, Sex, Baby Oil: The ‘Freak-Offs’ at the Core of Sean Combs’s Troubles

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      Prosecutors say the sexual encounters in hotel rooms were coercive and abusive and are the heart of their sex trafficking case. The music mogul’s lawyers call them consensual.A woman and a male prostitute gather for sex in a luxury hotel suite that, in the government’s telling, has been lit for filming and stocked with baby oil and drugs. Another man watches and sometimes captures the events on video. These sexual marathons, complete with a cleanup staff, sometimes went on for days.To the people involved, they were known as “freak-offs.”The 14-page federal criminal indictment of Sean Combs, the music mogul known as Diddy and Puff Daddy, accuses him of participating in many crimes including arson, bribery, kidnapping and obstruction of justice. But the heart of the government’s case is the premise that the criminal “enterprise” he ran as an alleged racketeer was responsible for coordinating these “freak-offs,” and then covering up any damage to hotel rooms, or people, when they were over.In the government’s portrayal, they were horror shows — “elaborate and produced sex performances,” according to the indictment — that involved copious drug use and coerced sex, leaving participants so exhausted and drained that they were given fluids intravenously to recover. Then, the government said, Mr. Combs weaponized the videos he had shot to keep any participants from complaining.“Freak-off activity is the core of this case, and freak-offs are inherently dangerous,” Emily A. Johnson, one of the prosecutors, said at a hearing last week.The government’s depiction closely mirrors allegations made by the singer Cassie in a bombshell civil suit she filed last fall against Mr. Combs, her former boyfriend. The indictment attaches no name to its account of the freak-offs, instead referring only anonymously to a “Victim-1.”Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura, said in her lawsuit that Mr. Combs directed frequent “freak-offs” at high-end hotels around the country, directing her at the events to pour “excessive” amounts of oil on herself and telling her where to touch the prostitutes while he filmed and masturbated.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