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      Ex-Dancer Accuses Shen Yun of Forced Labor and Trafficking in Lawsuit

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      The former performer, who was recruited to join Shen Yun at age 13, said the prominent dance group coerced children into making money for it.A former dancer for Shen Yun Performing Arts, the prominent music and dance group operated by the Falun Gong religious movement, filed a lawsuit on Monday, accusing its leaders of trafficking vulnerable children to work for little to no pay.The lawsuit, brought in Federal District Court in Manhattan, describes Shen Yun as a “forced labor enterprise” that has exploited underage dancers through threats and public shaming to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.Shen Yun instills obedience in its dancers through a wide range of tactics, the lawsuit alleges, including by confiscating their passports, cutting them off from outside media, denouncing them as Chinese government spies if they questioned the group’s practices and subjecting rule-breakers to public critique sessions.The former dancer who filed the lawsuit, Chang Chun-Ko, said she was recruited from Taiwan to join Shen Yun as a dancer at age 13, in 2009. She performed with the group until she left in 2020, when she was 24.Ms. Chang sued under a federal law that allows victims of forced labor to bring lawsuits against their traffickers.The lawsuit comes three months after The New York Times revealed that Shen Yun’s performers had been working in abusive conditions for years. Ms. Chang, now 28, was among the former performers and instructors quoted in the article.The New York State Department of Labor has opened an inquiry into the company’s labor practices, including its use of child performers, The Times reported last week.The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount in damages. Ms. Chang is the only named plaintiff, but she is seeking to certify the lawsuit as a class action.Shen Yun, which performed more than 800 times on five continents in its most recent tour, puts on a two-hour dance and music show that spreads the message of Falun Gong, a religious movement that is banned in China and has been persecuted by the Chinese government.Representatives of Shen Yun and Falun Gong did not immediately provide a comment on Monday. They have previously denied violating any laws and said labor laws did not apply to their underage performers because they are students who tour with Shen Yun as a learning opportunity, not employees. Every student participates in Shen Yun voluntarily, they have said.“Sure, some people leave because it’s not for them, and that’s perfectly fine,” Shen Yun’s representatives said in a recent statement. “But the vast majority of students will tell you this is their dream come true, and the parents rave about the positive changes in their children.”This is a developing story and will be updated. More

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      California Educator Is Charged With Molesting 8 Children

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      David Braff was first accused of misconduct years ago but has since held a series of school jobs. The authorities are investigating the possibility of additional victims. A Los Angeles assistant principal was arrested on Friday and charged with molesting eight children between 2015 and 2019, while he was working as an elementary school counselor in Ventura County. The defendant, David Lane Braff Jr., 42, of Thousand Oaks, Calif., is accused of molesting children aged 6 to 10 in an office at McKevett Elementary School in the Santa Paula Unified School District, roughly 70 miles west of Los Angeles. The charges emerged out of a cold case sexual abuse unit, Ventura County District Attorney Erik Nasarenko said. He noted that officials at McKevett Elementary had reached out to authorities at the time of the alleged incidents.Nevertheless, Mr. Braff has held several jobs in public education since and has also volunteered in a number of programs for children.Mr. Nasarenko described an “extensive search for the possibility of other victims at other school sites and locations.” “This shakes the very foundation of the notion of a school site as a safe learning environment,” he said.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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      Urologist Who Sexually Abused Patients Is Sentenced to Life in Prison

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      Darius A. Paduch, a fertility specialist, assaulted men and boys for years at prominent New York hospitals, prosecutors said.A urologist convicted of sexually abusing seven patients, including five who were minors, was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday, prosecutors said.The doctor, Darius A. Paduch, a fertility specialist, molested boys and young men for years at two prominent New York hospitals, prosecutors said. Hundreds of other young men and boys have also accused Dr. Paduch, 57, of abuse spanning more than 15 years in scores of civil suits.Dr. Paduch “was a sexual predator who preyed on patients seeking treatment for sensitive medical issues,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement on Wednesday. “He used his position as a renowned urologist at prestigious hospitals to sexually assault vulnerable patients, including children, to gratify his own sexual desires.”In May, a jury found him guilty of five counts of inducing a minor to engage in unlawful sexual activity and six counts of enticing people to travel to engage in unlawful sexual activity. The trial lasted just two weeks.On Wednesday, his sentence was handed down by Judge Ronnie Abrams in federal court in Manhattan.Dr. Paduch, of North Bergen, N.J., was arrested last April. He has been barred from practicing in New York. Through the trial, he maintained his innocence. A lawyer who represented him, Michael Baldassare, said on Wednesday that “we are confident that one day he will be vindicated.”Once a urologist who specialized in treating patients with a genetic condition, Dr. Paduch worked at hospitals including NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and Weill-Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan and Northwell Health on Long Island. According to prosecutors, he used his position at prominent hospitals “to make the victims believe that the sexual abuse he inflicted on them was medically necessary and appropriate, when, in fact, it was not.”The abuse continued over several years in some cases, as Dr. Paduch instructed the patients to return for follow-up appointments, where he continued to assault them. During appointments, the indictment said, Dr. Paduch told patients to masturbate in front of him, sometimes groping them or showing them pornography.During the course of the trial, 11 victims testified about abuse they had suffered under Dr. Paduch’s care, and dozens more wrote impact statements before he was sentenced Wednesday.Mallory Allen, a lawyer for a firm that represents 140 former patients who have filed civil suits against him, said in a statement that the sentence affirms that “heinous sexual abuse will not be overlooked.”Survivors of the abuse have also sued the hospitals where he worked under the Adult Survivors Act, which opened a yearlong window between 2022 and 2023 during which adult victims of abuse could file claims even after the statute of limitations had passed.“While no sentence can ever undo the pain and suffering endured by each and every survivor who experienced abuse at the hands of Dr. Darius Paduch, the sentencing closes an important chapter for these survivors,” Ms. Allen said in the statement. More

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      Texas Judge Finds Death Row Inmate Melissa Lucio Innocent In Daughter’s Death

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      In a court filing, the judge said the conviction of Melissa Lucio, whose scheduled execution in 2022 was halted, should be overturned. The state’s highest criminal court will now decide.A Texas district judge declared that a mother on death row is innocent in the 2007 death of her 2-year-old daughter, according to court documents filed in October but made public this week.The decision in the case now stands with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, which in 2022 halted a scheduled execution of the mother, Melissa Lucio, to gather more evidence. That included asking the district judge in the original trial, Arturo Nelson, to file an opinion. An execution date has not been rescheduled.Ms. Lucio, 56, who lived in the border city of Harlingen, was sentenced to death in 2008 after her daughter, Mariah Alvarez, died as a result of what prosecutors said was the mother’s physical abuse. Ms. Lucio and her lawyers have long maintained her innocence, arguing that Mariah died from complications after accidentally falling down a flight of stairs. An autopsy said the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.Judge Nelson sided with Ms. Lucio in his recent findings, writing that she was “actually innocent; she did not kill her daughter.”He added that, even regardless of that conclusion, Ms. Lucio had a right to have her conviction overturned because the state had used false testimony in her trial and withheld evidence that was favorable to her case. The judge also cited new scientific evidence that was unavailable during her trial.It was unclear on Saturday when the Court of Criminal Appeals would issue its ruling. Vanessa Potkin, one of Ms. Lucio’s lawyers and a special litigation director for the Innocence Project, said it could take a couple of months. Once that court rules, the case could be returned to trial court, at which point a prosecutor would decide if the case should be retried or the charges dismissed.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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      Why Women Find Watching True Crime Comforting

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      Since the election, I have been spending a lot of time horizontal in my soft pants watching true crime — nonfiction television about a variety of illegal activity, mostly murder. My husband thinks it is pretty demented that I find comfort by turning away from breaking news and watching a show called “Accident, Suicide, or Murder,” but I often watch or listen to true crime as a way to calm down.That I am a woman who enjoys this lurid pastime does not make me remotely unique. Women are twice as likely as men to listen to true crime podcasts, and younger women with less formal education are particularly likely to listen. Some have estimated that the audience for true crime shows is 80 percent female. In fact, women loving true crime is such a cliché that “Saturday Night Live” made a song about it in 2021. I half sing it to myself every time I turn on “Dateline”: “I’m gonna watch a murder show, murder show/ I’m gonna watch a murder show…late night true crime, this is my relaxing time.”I have seen many theories — in academic papers and Reddit forums and talking to other crime junkies — about why women are more drawn to the genre. The explanation I see most frequently is that women watch true crime to protect themselves: We are usually less physically powerful than men are, and we think that by understanding the psychology of criminals we can better avoid them.That interpretation may be true for some women, but it never quite resonated with me. It wasn’t until I was processing my anger about America electing a man who was found liable for sexual abuse and nominating people who were accused of sex trafficking to run the Justice Department that I could finally explain to myself why I find the genre so irresistible.Most of the true crime I watch reflects a black and white moral universe where victims ultimately get justice, even if it is delayed. In this closed world, modern law enforcement is competent and empathetic, and evidence from medical examiners and forensic scientists is taken seriously. I don’t like “Unsolved Mysteries” because there’s no real resolution for the victim’s family, I find it devastating. But my favorite true crime does not just show good people doing their jobs. It also celebrates the emotional and intuitive; victims, including their families, often have hunches about perpetrators that elude law enforcement and defy norms.An excellent recent example of the moral universe I enjoy returning to, one that felt particularly poignant, is the two-part Netflix documentary “Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter.” It centers on Cathy Terkanian, who in 1974, at 16, had a daughter she named Alexis. Her mother pressured her to give Alexis up for adoption so that the little girl could have a better life.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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      Archbishop of Canterbury Resigns Over U.K. Church Abuse Scandal

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      Justin Welby, the leader of 85 million Anglicans worldwide, announced his resignation days after a report found he had taken insufficient action over claims of abuse.The archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, on Tuesday announced his resignation, days after a report concluded that he had failed to ensure a proper investigation into claims that more than 100 boys and young men were abused decades ago at Christian summer camps.Pressure had mounted on Mr. Welby, the spiritual leader of 85 million Anglicans worldwide, after the report was published and after one senior figure in the church, the bishop of Newcastle, Helen-Ann Hartley, called on him publicly to step aside.In a statement on Tuesday, Mr. Welby said, “It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatizing period between 2013 and 2024.”He said that he had sought permission to resign from King Charles III, and added: “I hope this decision makes clear how seriously the Church of England understands the need for change and our profound commitment to creating a safer church. As I step down I do so in sorrow with all victims and survivors of abuse.”Mr. Welby, 68, has held his position since 2013 and was scheduled to retire in 2026. His departure brings to a premature end the tenure of the country’s best known cleric, who took over the leadership of the Church of England at a time of tension between liberals and traditionalists.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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      Dorothy Allison, Author of ‘Bastard Out of Carolina,’ Dies at 75

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      She wrote lovingly and often hilariously about her harrowing childhood in a working-class Southern family, as well as about the violence and incest she suffered.Dorothy Allison, who wrote with lyrical, pungent wit about her working-class Southern upbringing — and about the incest and violence that shaped her — and whose acclaimed 1992 novel, “Bastard Out of Carolina,” based on her harrowing childhood, made her a literary star, died on Tuesday at her home in Guerneville, Calif., in Sonoma County. She was 75.Her death, from cancer, was announced by the Frances Goldin Literary Agency, her longtime representative.Ms. Allison was flat broke in 1989 when she decided to try to sell “Bastard Out of Carolina,” the novel she had been writing for nearly a decade, to a mainstream publisher. “Trash,” a critically praised collection of short stories, had already been published by Firebrand Books, a feminist publishing house; so had her collection of poetry, “The Women Who Hate Me,” which she first published herself as a chapbook in 1983. In both books, she tackled lust, the scrum of feminist politics and her chaotic, beloved family. Feminism had saved her life, she often said, and she was certain that because of her political convictions, the mainstream press would not welcome her.“Bastard Out of Carolina” was published in 1992 to almost unanimous acclaim and made numerous best-seller lists.No creditMs. Allison liked to describe herself, as she told The New York Times Magazine in 1995, as a “cross-eyed, working-class lesbian addicted to violence, language and hope.”But at the time, she and her partner, Alix Layman, a trombone player who had been kicked out of the Army for being gay, were living on grits. Ms. Allison, who was legally blind in one eye, had numerous other health concerns and medical debt, and she could no longer support her writing with part-time clerical jobs.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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      Long Island Therapist Charged With Distributing Child Sex Abuse Imagery

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      Renee Hoberman, a licensed social worker on Long Island, used messaging platforms to share graphic videos of infants being abused, prosecutors said.A child therapist on Long Island has been charged with distributing sexual abuse imagery of children as young as infants on social media, according to a federal complaint.The therapist, identified as Renee Hoberman, 36, of Plainview, N.Y., appeared in court in Central Islip on Wednesday before Magistrate Judge Arlene R. Lindsay, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York. The judge ordered that Ms. Hoberman be held without bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, the U.S. attorney’s office said.Federal prosecutors said that over several months this year, Ms. Hoberman, a licensed social worker who also goes by Rina, used messaging apps to upload sexually abusive images of minors, including videos of a man raping infants a year old or younger.As recently as Oct. 16, the complaint said, she uploaded the images to several “chats” on the messaging app Kik, claiming to be a man with several young children. She described punishing the children with sexual assaults, the complaint said, and shared two videos depicting the abuse of children whom she said belonged to the man she claimed to be. She also invited another person in the chat to visit and “spank the children,” the complaint said.Ms. Hoberman has not been charged with producing child sexual abuse imagery, and the complaint does not indicate that she was involved in the abuse.Ms. Hoberman’s public defender, Evan Sugar, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Her brother and father, reached by phone on Wednesday evening, both declined to comment.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