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    College Assistant Admissions Director Charged With Attempted Sex Trafficking

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    The authorities arrested Jacob Henriques, 29, after he had tried to solicit prospective and admitted students for sex, the Justice Department said. He worked for Emmanuel College in Boston.A former assistant admissions director at Emmanuel College in Boston was arrested Friday and accused of soliciting an underage applicant for sex, the Justice Department said.Prosecutors charged the director, Jacob Henriques, 29, with one count of attempted sex trafficking of a minor after he used his position to gain access to the personal information of admitted and prospective students, and tried to solicit them for sex, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Massachusetts.In a statement, Emmanuel College said that it fired Mr. Henriques after contacting law enforcement and starting an investigation. “Emmanuel College is saddened, angered and shocked by these serious federal allegations,” it said.Whether Mr. Henriques had legal representation was not immediately clear. On April 25, Mr. Henriques found the personal information of at least three of the students after meeting with several, prosecutors said. He then contacted and offered to “pay them for some fun,” the authorities added, and sent pornographic videos or images in some cases.The same day, he began contacting a fourth victim after she committed to attending the college, according to prosecutors.One of the victims, a 17-year-old, toured the college with Mr. Henriques on April 25, prosecutors said. Mr. Henriques asked her what grade she was in, and hours after the tour, he began texting the victim on the phone number on her admissions form, prosecutors said. He offered to pay her $400 for “some fun” and told her that he had pornographic videos and pictures for her, prosecutors said. He continued to contact her that night, refusing to tell her his identity or how he had her number, they added.Mr. Henriques then sent the prospective student five pornographic videos and asked whether she wanted to engage in sexual acts with him, prosecutors said. After her multiple refusals, Mr. Henriques continued to text her, saying “he would buy her anything she wanted” if she changed her mind, prosecutors said. Over the following days, he went into her admissions profile nearly 50 times, according to the Justice Department.Mr. Henriques contacted the student through email after she blocked his number, prosecutors said.A profile of Mr. Henriques that had been on Emmanuel College’s website said that he graduated in 2021 and was an “avid Boston sports fan,” and that his favorite thing about the college was its small classes, which allowed students “to connect with peers and faculty.”If Mr. Henriques is convicted, he could receive from 10 years to life in prison, the Justice Department said. He is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Boston on Monday. More

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      Russell Brand to Appear in Court on Rape and Sexual Assault Charges

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      The comedian, actor and YouTuber will attend a London courtroom on Friday for the first stage of what could be lengthy criminal proceedings.The comedian and actor Russell Brand was scheduled on Friday to appear before a London court on multiple charges of sexual assault, including two counts of rape.His appearance at Westminster Magistrates Court will be the first, largely procedural, step in what are likely to be lengthy criminal proceedings. It comes a month after British prosecutors charged Mr. Brand with one count of rape, one of oral rape, two counts of sexual assault and another of indecent assault.Prosecutors said in a news release last month that the charges related to “reported nonrecent offenses between 1999 and 2005, involving four women.”Mr. Brand has denied all the charges. In a video posted to his social media accounts in April, Mr. Brand said that he had “never engaged in nonconsensual activity” and that he looked forward to defending himself in court.In Britain, the first hearing in a criminal trial is “largely administrative,” said Stuart Nolan of the Law Society, an organization representing British lawyers. On Friday, Mr. Nolan said, the judge would simply refer the case onto a higher court, called a crown court, which deals with more serious offenses.Mr. Brand would also be asked to confirm his name, address and date of birth, but would not enter a plea, Mr. Nolan added.A plea hearing would happen in about a month’s time, Mr. Nolan said, but the actual trial might only begin “a year from now,” because of a backlog of cases in Britain’s judicial system.Mr. Brand became a star in Britain in the early 2000s with hit stand-up shows and appearances as a TV and radio host. Later, after the period covered by the charges, he achieved fame in the United States, too, when he starred in movies including “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” (2008) and “Get Him to the Greek (2010). He was briefly married to the pop star Katy Perry.In recent years, Mr. Brand became better known for conspiracy-minded YouTube videos. Almost seven million users subscribe to his channel, where Mr. Brand has posted clips about politics and news events such as the war in Ukraine.Under British law, news outlets cannot identify anyone who makes sexual assault allegations unless they choose to waive their right to anonymity. After charges have been filed, strict rules also prevent the reporting of any information that could prejudice a jury at trial. More

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      Virginia Giuffre, Voice in Epstein Sex Trafficking Scandal, Dies at 41

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      She accused Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, of recruiting her to join their sex-trafficking ring and sued Prince Andrew for sexual assault.Virginia Giuffre, a former victim of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring who said she was “passed around like a platter of fruit” as a teenager to rich and powerful predators, including Prince Andrew of Britain, died on Friday at her farm in Western Australia. She was 41.Ms. Giuffre died by suicide, according to a statement from the family. Ms. Giuffre (pronounced JIFF-ree) wrote in an Instagram post in March that she was days away from dying of renal failure after being injured in a crash with a school bus that she said was traveling at nearly 70 m.p.h.In 2019, Mr. Epstein was arrested and charged by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York with sex trafficking and conspiracy, and was accused of soliciting teenage girls to perform massages that became increasingly sexual in nature.Barely a month after he was apprehended, and a day after documents were released from Ms. Giuffre’s successful defamation suit against him, Mr. Epstein was found hanged in his cell in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan. His death, at 66, was ruled a suicide.In 2009 Ms. Giuffre, identified then only as Jane Doe 102, had sued Mr. Epstein, accusing him and Ghislaine Maxwell, his co-conspirator and the daughter of the disgraced British media magnate Robert Maxwell, of recruiting her to join his sex-trafficking ring when she was a minor under the guise of becoming a professional masseuse.Ms. Giuffre in 2023 with a photo of herself as a teenager. She said she was recruited to Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring as a minor and that she was “passed around like a platter of fruit” among his powerful friends.Emily Michot/Miami Herald, via Tribune News Service, via Getty ImagesWe 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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      Cardinal Roger Mahony, Accused of Hiding Sex Abuse, Will Help Close Pope Francis’ Casket

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      Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, who was accused of covering up cases of abuse as archbishop of Los Angeles, will have an official role in the ceremonies around Francis’ funeral.An American cardinal who was accused of covering up cases of sexual abuse by priests and was later stripped of some duties, is set to play an official role in the ceremonies surrounding Pope Francis’ funeral.Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, the former archbishop of Los Angeles, will participate in the closing of the pope’s casket at St. Peter’s Basilica on Friday evening and in his burial at the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore on Saturday, according to Vatican announcements.The cardinals taking part were chosen based on seniority, a spokesman for the Vatican, Matteo Bruni, said at a news briefing on Thursday.Cardinal Mahony, 89, was the archbishop of Los Angeles from 1985 until his retirement from the Roman Catholic Church in 2011. In 2013, internal church personnel files released as part of a civil case revealed that Cardinal Mahony had played a role in covering up cases of sexual abuse by priests.The documents show that Cardinal Mahony and others worked to protect abusive priests from punishment and withhold evidence of sexual abuse from law enforcement agencies. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest in the United States, also sent priests who had molested children out of state for treatment, in part because therapists in California were legally obligated to report evidence of child abuse to the police, according to the documents.In 2007, the Los Angeles archdiocese agreed to pay $660 million to settle claims from more than 500 victims, the largest settlement for priest sexual abuse at the time. Last year, the church agreed to pay another $880 million to settle abuse claims from 1,353 people.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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      A $4 Billion Sex Abuse Settlement in L.A., After Childhoods of ‘Pure Hell’

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      MaryAlice Ashbrook remembers the rain on the night the Los Angeles police retrieved her, the 8-year-old child of a pill-addicted mother, and took her to the MacLaren Children’s Center, the county-run foster home where she was preyed upon. Shirley Bodkin remembers the smell of the staff member there who would put her on his lap and make her hold a Raggedy Ann doll while he hurt her. J.C. Wright remembers the social workers who accused him, at age 7, of “fabricating” when he tried telling them what a doctor there had done to him. Those memories are decades old. Ms. Ashbrook is 65 now, a retired bookkeeper in Yuma, Ariz. Ms. Bodkin is 58, the mother of two grown sons in the Southern California beach town of Dana Point. Mr. Wright is 42, a truck driver and father of four in suburban Los Angeles.Whole chapters of their lives have gone by — marriages, children, careers — yet the memories have never ceased to torment them. Ms. Ashbrook tried electroshock therapy. Ms. Bodkin attempted suicide. Mr. Wright lived on the streets for years, ending up in prison. There was no escaping the nightmares, they said in interviews on Sunday. So they turned to the courts for some measure of relief.Last week, it arrived, for them and nearly 7,000 other plaintiffs who say they were sexually abused as children in Los Angeles County’s juvenile detention and foster care systems, in cases dating to the late 1950s. In a settlement that lawyers say is the largest of its kind in the nation, the county publicly apologized and agreed to pay a record $4 billion, dwarfing previous settlements in child sex abuse cases brought against the Boy Scouts of America and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The wave of claims — so immense that officials had warned before the deal that Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, could be bankrupted by it — came after California gave childhood victims a new window to sue, even though the statute of limitations had expired. The county’s Board of Supervisors is expected to formally approve the payout on April 29.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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      Russell Brand Is Charged With Rape and Sexual Assault in U.K.

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      British prosecutors said that they had charged the comedian and actor with offenses between 1999 and 2005, involving four women.Prosecutors in Britain have charged Russell Brand, the comedian and actor, with multiple counts of sexual assault, including two counts of rape.The country’s Crown Prosecution Service announced the charges on Friday.Jaswant Narwal, a prosecutor, said in the statement that Mr. Brand, 50, would appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London for a first hearing on May 2.Ms. Narwal added that the charges “relate to reported non-recent offenses between 1999 and 2005, involving four women.”The British police began investigating Mr. Brand’s past behavior in September 2023, after The Sunday Times, The Times of London and the TV network Channel 4 published a joint investigation into allegations against him.Representatives for Mr. Brand did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday, but he has repeatedly denied ever having committed sexual assault.After the 2023 news investigation was published, Mr. Brand released a video on social media in which he said the British media was subjecting him to “a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks.” Mr. Brand said that he had once been sexually promiscuous but that his sexual encounters were “always consensual.”The Metropolitan Police in London outlined further details of the charges in a news release on Friday. Mr. Brand is accused of raping a woman in the Bournemouth area, in southern England, in 1999; of indecently assaulting a woman in London in 2001; of orally raping and sexually assaulting a woman in London in 2004; and, between 2004 and 2005, of sexually assaulting a fourth woman in London.The police statement added: “The Met’s investigation remains open and detectives ask anyone who has been affected by this case, or anyone who has any information, to come forward and speak with police.”Under British law, it is an offense for news outlets to identify people who make sexual assault allegations unless they choose to waive their right to anonymity.Mr. Brand became a star in Britain in the 2000s thanks to acclaimed stand-up shows that often focused on drugs and sex, and that saw him selling out arena dates. He also became known as a TV and radio host for broadcasters including MTV and the BBC. He achieved fame in the United States after starring in movies such as “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Get Him to the Greek,” and through a brief marriage to the singer Katy Perry.More recently, Mr. Brand has become well known as a politically charged YouTuber. Over six million users subscribe to his channel where he posts videos that regularly include discussion of conspiracy theories and feature conservative figures like Tucker Carlson.On Thursday, Mr. Brand posted a clip about Donald Trump and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.In Britain, strict rules prevent the reporting of anything that could prejudice a jury at trial after charges have been filed. More

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      Gérard Depardieu Appears in Court Over Sexual Assault Allegations

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      The French actor faces charges in a case involving two women working on the set of a movie in which he starred.The French actor Gérard Depardieu on Monday appeared before a Paris court where he faces two charges of sexually assaulting two women working on the set of a film in which he was starring.The trial will be the first time Mr. Depardieu has been forced to answer in court to accusations of groping, sexual assault and harassment, and rape that have piled up against him for years, and which he has denied.The charges in this trial came after two women on the set of “Les Volets Verts,” a movie by the French director Jean Becker that was released in 2022, filed police complaints that he had groped their genitals, buttocks and breasts. If found guilty, Mr. Depardieu faces up to five years in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros, or about $81,000.Mr. Depardieu has denied all accusations in the case being brought to trial Monday. His lawyer, Jérémie Assous, called them “totally false and unrealistic.”The trial was scheduled for last October, but was postponed after Mr. Depardieu did not appear for health reasons. Mr. Assous presented medical assessments that showed Mr. Depardieu suffered from long-term diabetes and heart problems after undergoing a quadruple bypass, and that anxiety from the trial had worsened his conditions.For many, the case represents a breakthrough for the #MeToo movement in France, which was stalled for years, particularly in the film industry.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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      What Is Tren de Aragua?

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      A gang with roots in a Venezuelan prison, the criminal group was at the center of President Trump’s order invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.President Trump’s executive order on Saturday invoking the Alien Enemies Act targeted Venezuelan citizens 14 years and older with ties to the transnational gang Tren de Aragua, saying they “are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.”Mr. Trump’s order was quickly challenged in court, but the gang has been a growing source of concern for U.S. officials over the last year. The Biden administration labeled Tren de Aragua a transnational criminal organization in 2024, the New York Police Department has highlighted its activity on the East Coast, and the Trump White House began the process of designating it a foreign terrorist organization in January.Here is what we know about the gang:A rising force out of VenezuelaTren de Aragua (Train of Aragua, or Aragua Train) has roots in Tocorón prison in Venezuela’s northern Aragua state, which the group’s leaders had transformed into a mini-city with a pool, restaurants and a zoo. They reportedly recorded executions and torture there to maintain control over other prisoners.As Venezuela’s economy collapsed and its government under President Nicolás Maduro became more repressive, the group began exploiting vulnerable migrants. Tren de Aragua’s influence soon stretched into other parts of Latin America, and it developed into one of the region’s most violent and notorious criminal organizations, focusing on sex trafficking, human smuggling and drugs.Colombian officials in 2022 accused the gang of at least 23 murders after the police began to find body parts in bags. Alleged members have also been apprehended in Chile and in Brazil, where the gang aligned itself with Primeiro Comando da Capital, one of that country’s biggest organized crime rings.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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      Former Texas Megachurch Pastor Is Indicted on Child Sex Abuse Charges

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      Robert Morris, the former senior pastor of the Dallas-based Gateway Church, abused a girl over several years in the 1980s, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office said.Robert Morris, the founder of a Texas megachurch and a former faith adviser to the Trump White House, was indicted Wednesday on charges that he molested a girl over several years in the 1980s, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office said.Last summer, days after Cindy Clemishire publicly accused Mr. Morris, 63, of having abused her when she was a girl, Mr. Morris resigned as the senior pastor of the Dallas-based Gateway Church.On Wednesday, a grand jury indicted Mr. Morris on five felony counts of lewd or indecent acts to a child after concluding that he had used his hands and body to touch the girl’s private parts from when she was 12 until she was 14, according to the indictment. The indictment refers to the girl only as C.C.Ms. Clemishire, 55, of Oklahoma, told The Dallas Morning News last year that the abuse had begun when her family invited Mr. Morris — then a young, traveling preacher — to stay at their home in Oklahoma on Christmas Day in 1982. It took her decades to realize that what had happened to her was abuse and a crime, Ms. Clemishire told the newspaper.In a statement on Wednesday, Ms. Clemishire said, “After almost 43 years, the law has finally caught up with Robert Morris for the horrific crimes he committed against me.” She added, “My family and I are deeply grateful to the authorities who have worked tirelessly to make this day possible and remain hopeful that justice will ultimately prevail.”Lawyers who had represented Mr. Morris did not immediately respond to phone calls and emails seeking comment.In a statement to The Christian Post last year after Ms. Clemishire made her allegations, Mr. Morris, who founded Gateway Church in 2000, confessed that he had engaged in “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady.” Gateway Church, one of the largest churches in the United States, claimed to have more than 100,000 attendees.In a statement on Wednesday night, Gateway Church said: “We are aware of the actions being taken by the legal authorities in Oklahoma and are grateful for the work of the justice system in holding abusers accountable for their actions. We continue to pray for Cindy Clemishire and her family, for the members and staff of Gateway Church, and for all of those impacted by this terrible situation.”Mr. Morris had served on a faith advisory council during President Trump’s first term. He hosted Mr. Trump at Gateway Church in June 2020. In 2024, a spokesman for Mr. Trump said that Mr. Morris had not played a role in his 2024 presidential campaign.Specifics about the criminal investigation into Ms. Clemishire’s claims were not immediately available. The charges that Mr. Morris faces each carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.Sheelagh McNeill More