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      Telegram Founder Pavel Durov Defends App in First Comments Since Arrest

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      Pavel Durov, held in France since last month, blamed “growing pains” for the company’s problems and pledged to make improvements.Pavel Durov, the founder of the online communications tool Telegram, said on Thursday that it was a “misguided approach” to hold him personally responsible for the spread of illicit content on the platform.Mr. Durov’s comments, made on his Telegram account, were his first public remarks since he was arrested at an airport outside Paris and charged last month by the French authorities for failing to prevent illegal activity on the app. The crimes on Telegram included the spread of child sexual abuse material, fraud and drug sales, French prosecutors have said.“No innovator will ever build new tools if they know they can be personally held responsible for potential abuse of those tools,” Mr. Durov wrote. He said “growing pains” on Telegram, which has 950 million users, had made it easy for criminals to abuse the platform.“That’s why I made it my personal goal to ensure we significantly improve things in this regard,” he said.Mr. Durov’s case has become a point of contention in the politically charged debate over the limits of free speech on the internet. Telegram is committed to light supervision of what people say or do on the platform. The app has helped people living under authoritarian governments communicate and organize. But it has also become a hothouse for disinformation, extremism and other harmful content.Telegram has long been in the cross hairs of global law enforcement agencies because it has refused to cooperate with the authorities. French prosecutors said Mr. Durov had been arrested in part because of Telegram’s “almost total lack of response” to requests related to criminal investigations.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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      Harvey Weinstein Indecent Assault Case Dropped by U.K. Prosecutors

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      The Crown Prosecution Service said that it had “decided that there is no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.”British prosecutors have dropped a case against Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced movie mogul, just two years after authorizing indecent assault charges against him.In a statement on Thursday, the Crown Prosecution Service said that, “following a review of the evidence,” it had decided to halt the proceedings against Mr. Weinstein.Frank Ferguson, head of the service’s special crime and counterterrorism division, said in the statement that there was “no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.”“We have explained our decision to all parties,” he added.On Thursday, a spokeswoman for the Crown Prosecution Service said in an email that the service would not be giving any further details of the reasoning behind the decision.The case dates to 2022, when British prosecutors authorized two charges against Mr. Weinstein of indecent assault of a woman in London in 1996. Under British law, it is illegal to identify potential victims of sexual assault, even after prosecutors drop a case.At the height of his powers, Mr. Weinstein, now 72, was one of the world’s most important movie producers, widely seen as able to make or break an actor’s career.In 2017, his career went into free fall after The New York Times reported that he had, over the course of nearly three decades, paid off women who had accused him of sexual assault. In the story’s aftermath, prosecutors mounted cases against him in both Britain and the United States.Last year, Mr. Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years in prison after being convicted of rape and sexual assault in California.In April, New York’s highest court overturned Mr. Weinstein’s 2020 felony sex crimes conviction, ruling that the original judge had deprived him of a fair trial. The court said that the original judge should not have let prosecutors call witnesses who said that Mr. Weinstein had assaulted them when their accusations did not form part of the case.In May, Manhattan prosecutors announced they would retry Mr. Weinstein on sex crimes charges and he is currently in the Rikers Island jail complex awaiting that case. More

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      Backpage Founder Gets Five Years in Case That Shut Down Website

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      Michael Lacey, 76, co-founded the website that became known for its ads for prostitution. He was convicted on a money laundering charge in a case that included accusations of sex trafficking.A founder of the shuttered classified advertising website Backpage was sentenced on Wednesday to five years in federal prison in connection with a sweeping case that led to the closing of the website and accusations against its executives that they promoted sex trafficking, prosecutors said.Michael Lacey, 76, of Arizona, was convicted on a single count of international concealment money laundering in November after being charged in a 100-count indictment in 2018 with several other defendants who, prosecutors said, conspired to promote prostitution ads and launder earnings of more than $500 million made from the scheme between 2010 and 2018. The case was tried in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.In addition to the five-year prison sentence, Mr. Lacey was ordered Wednesday to pay a $3 million fine, prosecutors said.The jury that convicted Mr. Lacey last year was deadlocked on 84 other charges against him, including several charges that he helped advertise prostitution on Backpage. The deadlock led U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa to declare a mistrial on those counts. It was the second mistrial in the case. Mr. Lacey would later be acquitted of several of the counts, but could still face 30 of them, according to The Associated Press.Two other executives, Scott Spear and John “Jed” Brunst, were convicted alongside Mr. Lacey on both money laundering and prostitution facilitation counts.They were acquitted on some of those charges in April, but each received 10-year sentences Wednesday, according to a spokesman for the Justice Department, Joshua Stueve.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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      Oren Alexander, Top Real Estate Agent, Faces Another Claim of Sexual Assault

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      A fourth woman filed a lawsuit against Oren Alexander, once a star agent of luxury real estate.An actress and comedian says she was drugged and sexually assaulted by Oren Alexander, a top luxury real estate agent who is facing a string of accusations that he and his two of his brothers sexually assaulted women — allegations that had been whispered throughout the high-end real estate industry for years.Renee Willett, 31, filed a federal lawsuit on Friday accusing Mr. Alexander, 37, of attacking her in his apartment nearly nine years ago. She is the fourth woman to file a lawsuit this summer against Mr. Alexander. Two earlier lawsuits filed this year name Mr. Alexander and his twin brother, Alon, who does not work in real estate but often socializes with him. A third suit filed in June names Oren, Alon and their older brother Tal Alexander, 38, who is Oren’s longtime partner in real estate sales.Isabelle Kirshner, a lawyer for Oren Alexander, said she had no comment on the new allegation at this time. Oren, Tal and Alon have denied all previous allegations.Like other women who have said they were assaulted, Ms. Willett said she was prompted to file a lawsuit after reading articles about similar claims involving the Alexanders. Her lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York, came two days after The New York Times published an article with accounts from several women about the brothers.“I felt a responsibility to come forward,” she said. “I have to do this not just for myself, but for everyone else.”Ms. Willett is an actress and comedian who is now working on a screenplay. She came forward, she said, after learning about other allegations of assault against the Alexanders.Vivien Killilea/Getty Images For Idol RocWe 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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      How a Family of Taekwondo Instructors Stopped a Sexual Assault

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      The An family, whose ages range from 18 to 59, stopped the sexual assault of a woman in Katy, Texas, on Tuesday and handed the attacker over to the police.Simon An had just arrived with his parents, his older sister and his younger brother at his family’s taekwondo school in Katy, Texas, on Tuesday afternoon when they heard a scream so loud it reminded him of a horror movie.That was when the An family, all of whom are taekwondo instructors, sprang into action and stopped a sexual assault at the business next door, delivering the attacker to the police.Sheriff Ed Gonzalez of Harris County confirmed the account in a post on Facebook and thanked the An family, calling them “a group of good Samaritans.”Alex Robinson, 19, faces a felony charge of attempted sexual assault in connection with the attack, according to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.“By utilizing their training and discipline, they managed to stop the assault and hold him” until the police arrived, Sheriff Gonzalez said of the An family.At around 4 p.m. Tuesday, the An family arrived at the Yong-In Tae Kwon Do school to prepare for evening classes. They were still in the parking lot when Han and Hong An, the parents, heard a high-pitched scream from the business next door, according to the oldest son, Simon An, 20.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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      Killer of 2 Women in National Park in 1996 Has Been Identified, F.B.I. Says

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      A convicted serial rapist who died in an Ohio prison in 2018 was responsible for the murder of a couple at Shenandoah National Park in a case that initially was believed to be a hate crime.It took the authorities one week to find the bodies of Julianne Williams and Laura Winans near their campsite at a national park in Virginia in 1996 after their family reported them missing. But it would take nearly three decades for the authorities to identify the person they believe killed them.The F.B.I. office in Richmond on Thursday announced that new DNA evidence showed that Walter Leo Jackson Sr., a convicted serial rapist from Ohio who died in prison six years ago, had killed the couple in what initially was believed to have been an anti-gay hate crime and led to charges against another man that were eventually dropped by prosecutors in 2004.“After 28 years, we are now able to say who committed the brutal murders of Lollie Winans and Julie Williams in Shenandoah National Park,” Christopher R. Kavanaugh, the U.S. attorney for the western district of Virginia, said in a news release. “I want to again extend my condolences to the Winans and Williams families and hope today’s announcement provides some small measure of solace.”An F.B.I. investigative team revisited the case in 2021, the agency said. It re-examined previous leads and interviews and evidence recovered from the site of the killings. Investigators submitted some of the evidence for DNA testing and found a match to Mr. Jackson’s DNA, the agency said.“Even though we had this DNA match, we took additional steps and compared evidence from Lollie and Julie’s murders directly to a buccal swab containing Jackson’s DNA,” Stanley M. Meador, the F.B.I. special agent in charge in Richmond, said in a news release.Mr. Jackson, who painted homes for a living, died in an Ohio prison in March 2018, officials said. He had an extensive criminal history, including convictions for rape, kidnapping and assault.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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      Read the Ruling by the Virginia Court of Appeals

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      Safeguards in the Twenty-First Century, 2006 Wis. L. Rev. 479, 514 (2006); Gisli H. Gudjonsson, The
      Science-Based Pathways to Understanding False Confessions and Wrongful Convictions, 12 Frontiers
      Psychol. Feb. 2021. Further, Grimm presents a report from Dr. Richard Leo, Ph.D., J.D. Dr. Leo is a subject
      matter expert in false confessions and reviewed both the content and context of Grimm’s confession.
      DECISIONAL STANDARD
      “A person seeking a writ of actual innocence faces a daunting task; the process begins not with a
      presumption that a petitioner is innocent, but rather, that he or she is guilty.” Haas v. Commonwealth, 74
      Va. App. 586, 624 (2022); see also Tyler v. Commonwealth, 73 Va. App. 445, 459 (2021) (recognizing that
      this Court begins “with the presumption that [petitioner]’s conviction, the result of a full criminal trial that
      has been affirmed on direct appeal, is correct”). “Because the petition is filed with us in the first instance, we
      are not reviewing a judgment below in the traditional appellate sense, and consequently, there is no appellate
      standard of review to apply.” Tyler, 73 Va. App. at 458. “Rather, actual innocence petitions ‘present[] one of
      the rare situations in which the General Assembly has charged an appellate court with engaging in factual
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      evaluation.” Id. (alteration in original) (quoting Dennis v. Commonwealth, 297 Va. 104, 127 (2019)).
      Therefore, “[s]itting ‘as a court of original jurisdiction[,]’ we have ‘the same authority to weigh and
      evaluate documentary and physical evidence as a trial court would have.” Id. at 458-59 (second alteration in
      999
      original) (quoting Haas v. Commonwealth, 283 Va. 284, 292 (2019)). In exercising such jurisdiction, this
      Court must consider “the record of any trial or appellate court action,” Code § 19.2-327.11(D), and “the
      petition, the response by the Commonwealth, previous records of the case, the record of any hearing held
      under this chapter, and, if applicable, any findings certified from the circuit court pursuant to an order issued
      under this chapter[.]” Code § 19.2-327.13. The purpose of this review is “to allow us to perform the fact-
      finding function the General Assembly assigned us in the statutory scheme-determining whether the
      petitioner has produced sufficient new evidence to establish the statutory requirements to the requisite level of
      proof to warrant overturning a presumptively valid conviction.” Tyler, 73 Va. App. at 459.
      – 11 – More

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      Louisiana Passes Surgical Castration Bill for Child Molesters

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      The bill, if signed by the governor, would be the first to allow a judge to order surgical procedures for those who commit sex crimes against children.Judges in Louisiana could order people who are convicted of sex crimes against children to undergo surgical castration under a bill that state lawmakers passed overwhelmingly on Monday.While Louisiana and a few other states, including California, Texas and Florida, have long allowed chemical castration, the option to punish sex offenders via surgical castration — which is far more intrusive — appears to be the first in the country, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures and prisoners’ advocacy groups.The bill now awaits the signature of Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican who took office in January vowing a tough-on-crime approach. And while the bill easily passed the Republican-dominated Legislature, it was a Democrat from Baton Rouge, Senator Regina Barrow, who introduced the measure.“We are talking about babies who are being violated by somebody,” Ms. Barrow told lawmakers during an April committee meeting. “That is inexcusable.”The bill allows for the procedure to be ordered for either men or women.Some legislators expressed concerns about Louisiana’s record of wrongful convictions and the prospect of racial bias.“Who does this affect most?” Representative Edmond Jordan, a Baton Rouge Democrat who is Black, said during a legislative hearing. “I know it’s race neutral. I know we say it can apply to anybody, but we all know who it affects.” More