Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was arrested for allegedly sex trafficking dozens of minors in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005, and will appear in court in New York on Monday, according to three law enforcement sources. The arrest, by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force, comes about 12 years after the 66-year-old financier essentially got a slap on the wrist for allegedly molesting dozens of underage girls in Florida.
For more than a decade, Epstein’s alleged abuse of minors has been the subject of lawsuits brought by victims, investigations by local and federal authorities, and exposés in the press. But despite the attention cast on his alleged sex crimes, the hedge-funder has managed to avoid any meaningful jail time, let alone federal charges.
The new indictment—which, according to two sources, will be unsealed Monday in Manhattan federal court—will reportedly allege that Epstein sexually exploited dozens of underage girls in a now-familiar scheme: paying them cash for "massages" and then molesting or sexually abusing them in his Upper East Side mansion or his palatial residence in Palm Beach. Epstein will be charged with one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of minors—which could put him away for a maximum of 45 years. The case is being handled by the Public Corruption Unit of the Southern District of New York, with assistance from the district's human-trafficking officials and the FBI.
Epstein had a lot of power and he had a lot of friends -- including the current president of the US as well as Bill and Hillary Clinton.
To be clear, knowing him -- even traveling with him -- does not make Donald, Bill, Hillary or anyone else guilty of sex trafficking.
He should have been sent to prison in 2008.
THE NEW YORK TIMES adds:
The plea deal that protected Mr. Epstein from federal charges was signed by the top federal prosecutor in Miami at the time, Alexander Acosta, who is now President Trump’s labor secretary.
In February, a judge in Florida ruled that the prosecutors led by Mr. Acosta violated federal law when they failed to disclose Mr. Epstein’s nonprosecution agreement to his victims.
The agreement was negotiated in secret while victims were told prosecutors were still pursuing a possible federal criminal case.
Mr. Acosta has defended the handling of Mr. Epstein’s case, saying the plea deal sent Mr. Epstein to jail and guaranteed that he would register as a sex offender.
But lawyers for his victims have fought for years against a punishment they saw as too lenient.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
1000s detained, including kids, in degrading conditions in #Iraq. Overcrowding doesn't solely affect the detainees, but also the community as a whole. Authorities should ensure that conditions in prisons do not foster more grievances in the future.
hrw.org/news/2019/07/0…
What's she talking about?
Late Wednesday, Human Rights Watch issued an alert which opened:
Of course, working with the Ministry of the Interior can be problematic since there's no one in charge of the ministry. September was really the last time there was a Minister of the Interior. Though the current prime minister Adil Abdul Mahdi was supposed to nominate someone back in October, all these months later, he still hasn't. All these months later -- nine months, for those keeping track -- few are bothering to note this reality so I'll assume very few are keeping track.
Tamara Qiblawi and Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) report:
An Iraqi rights group has corroborated
the findings. "Unfortunately it is true," Ali Akram al-Bayati, a member
of the Independent High Commission for Human Rights of Iraq told CNN.
"(It is) because of the large number of detainees and imprisoned
persons, poor Iraqi infrastructure ... corruption at the level of
administration or staff in such places."
The
unnamed Iraqi penitentiary expert cited by HRW said Niniveh's three
pretrial detention facilities -- Tal Kayf, Faisaliya, and Tasfirat --
had a combined maximum capacity of 2,500 people.
But
one senior security official, who declined to be named because he is
not authorized to give statements to the media, told CNN Thursday that
two of these facilities alone currently housed at least 5,400 people.
ALJAZEERA adds:
Nearly one-third of detainees had already been convicted and should have been transferred from the three northern prisons to the capital, Baghdad. Some were supposed to have moved as long as six months ago.
Legal advocates have no access to their clients partly because the prisons have no space for meetings, according to a senior Iraqi penitentiary expert who visited the prisons and provided HRW with the photographs.
Iraq declared victory over the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIS or ISIL) in late 2017, and has continued to carry out arrests of suspected fighters, including in Nineveh province and its capital, Mosul - once ISIL's main Iraqi bastion.
The Iraqi government does not provide figures on detention centres or prisoners, but some studies have estimated 20,000 are being held for alleged ISIL links.
Staying on the topic of legal issues . . .
Just your daily reminder that Julian Assange faces up to 175 years in jail merely for exposing US war crimes in #Iraq to the world.
Meanwhile, those who invaded Iraq on a pack of lies, killing a million people, are still out there planning new wars against #Iran and #Venezuela.
Publisher Julian Assange remains persecuted. As Sarah notes, the ones who started the Iraq War do not. They roam freely when they should be behind bars. But Julian exposed the truth so the likes of Hillary Clinton have long been demanding his arrest and worse.
On the topic of Julian, Jean Shaoul (WSWS) reports:
The Frontline Club, bringing together journalists and photographers with an interest in war reporting and international relations, organised a meeting in London Tuesday night, Julian Assange: The Debate.
The Frontline Club has a long connection with Assange. In December 2010, one of the club’s founders Vaughan Smith stood surety for Assange to the tune of £20,000 along with eight others, hosting him for more than a year in his home after a two-month stay at the Club. Since then, Smith has faced a barrage of criticism for speaking in Assange’s defence.
While the ticketed event for around 100 was publicised as a debate, it took the form of a series of questions by the chair, veteran journalist Robin Lustig, to former Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger, Times columnist and broadcaster David Aaronovitch, Index on Censorship chief executive Jodie Ginsberg, Assange’s barrister Jennifer Robinson, as well as Smith.
Arguably the most despised among the advertised speakers, Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore, pulled out at the last minute. Moore famously tweeted of Assange, “He really is the most massive turd.” It was left to Aaronovitch, like Moore a former member of the Communist Party who has lurched ever further to the right, to take up the role as the event’s most vitriolic and unprincipled critic of Assange.
In 2012, Aaronovitch likened Assange’s “celebrity backers” to Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, “swinging down from a flying buttress to scoop up the doomed and swooning Esmeralda and swinging back, shouting ‘Sanctuary! Sanctuary!’” He had declared that Assange “should be arrested the second he steps outside the Ecuadorean embassy,” and headlined another article with the claim, “It’s Sweden that Assange fears, not America.” In November 2017, he proclaimed that “Assange isn’t a dreamer, he’s a destroyer,” in “the same destructive club as Putin and Trump.”
Lustig opened the meeting by asking whether Assange “deserved” solidarity and support. He declared his own passive and deliberately evasive position, “I hope the award-winning journalist is not be extradited, but that if he is, he would be acquitted.” This was a position the despicable Mr. Aaranovich was happy to sign off on, given the fact that Assange faces a kangaroo court in the UK whose verdict in favour of extradition is a foregone conclusion.
Rusbridger followed. His role in betraying and defaming Assange during his period as Guardian editor is a matter of public record. Yet he used his appearance to airbrush history, emphasising he was opposed to Assange’s extradition to the US. He cited 10 articles he had written in Assange’s defence and spoke of journalists’ obligation to defend Assange’s release of documents exposing US war crimes. He recalled the Guardian’s early collaboration with Assange — stressing his newspaper’s careful editing of the Wikileaks documents as “responsible” journalism. He had promised to stand by Assange if he faced prosecution for his work with the Guardian, a pledge he relayed to the audience without any evident shame.
When questioned about the Guardian’s failure to retract its long-discredited report that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign manager Paul Manafort met with Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2016—a claim flatly denied both Assange and Manafort—Rusbridger washed his hands of the issue, replying the article was written after his departure from the Guardian in 2015. He said nothing of the anti-Assange campaign begun under his own editorship and was not pressed seriously on this by Lustig.
Aaronovitch was far more explicitly hostile to Assange. When he referred to the Swedish allegations of sexual misconduct as “charges,” the pro-Assange audience shouted, “allegations not charges!” But he dismissed their protests, claiming, “I have to say that for most people, such distinctions are pretty small” and repeatedly referred to “charges” throughout the remainder of his venomous contribution.
While he did not name Assange, he insinuated that there are people in the media who are working with Russia—not as spies but as “agents” —who are manipulating the news and seeking to sway elections.
Vaughan Smith spoke with considerable feeling for the persecuted journalist, who he said had been “smeared on an industrial scale” to divert attention from the crimes he had exposed. Citing UN rapporteur Nils Melzer, he said that there was a well-funded attempt to demonise Assange, whom journalists had a responsibility to defend.
Following the Swedish allegations of sexual misconduct, Smith said there was a marked shift in the way Assange was treated in the press. He was smeared as a rapist. Facts were misrepresented. Crucially, the allegations were used not to prosecute Assange, but to defame and demonise him. He pointed out the ugly way the media had gloated over his illegal and brutal removal from the Ecuadorian embassy. He added that Assange had been sent to Belmarsh jail, dubbed Britain’s Guantanamo, in a bid to portray him as a danger to society.
In other legal news, Julie Watson and John Antczak (AP) provide an update on Edward Gallagher:
A decorated Navy SEAL acquitted of murder in the killing of a wounded Islamic State captive in Iraq but convicted over posing with the corpse was given a demotion by a military jury Wednesday after the Bronze Star recipient acknowledged making ethical and moral mistakes.
Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, 40, was also handed the maximum penalty for the offense of four months in confinement, though he will serve no jail time because it is less than the time he spent in custody before the trial.
Kevin Reed (WSWS) offers:
Gallagher’s record of murderous behavior goes back further than 2017. He was investigated for shooting a young girl in Afghanistan in 2010 but subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing. During his eighth deployment at the battle for Mosul, Gallagher was reported numerous times by fellow Navy SEALs for actions that were not in keeping with the “rules of war.”
Meanwhile, the prosecution’s case was thrown into a tailspin on June 20 when the medic, Special Operator First Class Corey Scott, who had been granted immunity, testified that Gallagher’s stab wounds did not kill the ISIS captive. Instead, Scott said that he placed his finger over the captive’s breathing tube until he died as an act of mercy.
The prosecution also suffered from the last-minute removal of its lead military lawyer one week before the trial was to begin. Navy Judge Captain Aaron Rugh removed prosecutor Cmdr. Christopher Czaplak for secretly attempting to track the communications of the defense team and a journalist covering the trial. The judge also ordered Gallagher released from custody while awaiting trial.
The military jury of five Marines and two sailors, including one SEAL, deliberated for eight hours over two days before they returned their decisions. The one conviction on the least serious of the charges carries a sentence of four months for which Gallagher will get credit for time already served. He will be released on Tuesday.
The court martial lasted for two weeks and the lead up to it became the occasion for right-wing US political figures to advocate for Gallagher and support his family’s campaign to “Free Eddie.” Republican Representative Dan Crenshaw of Texas, a former Navy SEAL who deployed to Afghanistan in 2012, sent a letter to the Secretary of the Navy demanding that Gallagher’s detention circumstances be improved. On March 30, President Donald Trump ordered Gallagher transferred to “less restrictive confinement” following complaints from his supporters.
If Reed is correct about past actions, why is the rage at Edward Gallagher and not at a system and the higher ups who would have not only covered up the alleged crimes but also sent someone like that into further battles?
I'm all for accountability. But if Reed is correct, the guilt goes much further than Edward Gallagher. If Reed is correct, Gallagher was just a pawn and he was deployed with the knowledge on the part of the brass that he would break rules and laws and commit War Crimes. At best, Edward would be the low hanging fruit. Is there a reason that so many are scared to aim higher when calling people out?
It's like the attacks on Judith Miller. As we've repeatedly noted, she did not write articles in the paper, edit the paper, take it to the printers, put content online and deliver print copies each morning. It's funny how history has made one person, a reporter, responsible for all the lies THE NEW YORK TIMES printed -- both in her articles and outside of her articles -- and allowed so many others -- including those in actual power over what made it into the paper (yes, Jill, we're talking about you again) have largely been allowed to skate free.
Accountability is always needed. Scapegoating one person for the crimes of many? Not so much.
Meanwhile Nick Meyer (ARAB AMERICAN NEWS) reports:
Iraq is in a fragile state and its great rivers including the iconic Euphrates and Tigris are dying, scientists say, as the country works to rebuild itself after thirty years of near constant war.
Iraq is now in the process of running out of water, which is sourced from the two mighty, historical rivers. Both run the length of the country supplying drinking water, irrigation, and hydroelectricity to a booming population.
But recently, the Euphrates has been reduced down to a quarter of its normal flow. In 2018, the Tigris sunk so low that people in Baghdad could wade across it.
The two rivers combine in a central point called the Shatt Al-Arab, but this area became so poisonous last summer that 100,000 people were hospitalized, sparking riots in the city of Basra, which was once nicknamed the “Venice of the Middle East.”
And that's going to be it for today. As Rebecca noted Monday, I've got other things to focus on today.
The following sites updated:
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Donna Summer
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