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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
      222
      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

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      Kehinde Wiley Denies Accusation of Sexual Assault by Artist

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      After Joseph Awuah-Darko accused Mr. Wiley of sexually assaulting him in Ghana, Mr. Wiley denied the claims, calling them “not true and an affront to all victims of sexual abuse.”After an artist accused the painter Kehinde Wiley of sexual assault in an Instagram post on Sunday, Mr. Wiley denied the allegations, saying on his own Instagram account that “someone I had a brief, consensual relationship with almost three years ago is now making a false accusation about our time together.”“These claims are not true and are an affront to all victims of sexual abuse,” Mr. Wiley added.Mr. Wiley, who was born in Los Angeles, is one of the best known painters in the United States, and is famous for his 2018 portrait of President Barack Obama.On Sunday, Joseph Awuah-Darko, a British-born Ghanaian artist and the founder of the Noldor Artist Residency in Ghana, said in a lengthy Instagram post that on June 9, 2021, Mr. Wiley assaulted him twice during and after a dinner in Ghana that was held in the famed artist’s honor. In the first incident, Mr. Awuah-Darko said that he had been directing Mr. Wiley to a washroom when the star suddenly grabbed his buttocks.Later that evening, Mr. Awuah-Darko said, a second assault occurred that was “much more severe and violent.” Mr. Awuah-Darko did not give further details of that incident on Instagram, but in a telephone interview, he said that a sexual encounter began consensually, but that it then moved to a bedroom, where he says that Mr. Wiley forced himself on him after Mr. Awuah-Darko had said he did not want to go further.Mr. Awuah-Darko showed The New York Times text exchanges he said he had with Mr. Wiley from after their encounter, in which he repeatedly told Mr. Wiley that he was missing him and said he wanted to meet again. Mr. Awuah-Darko said that he had initially convinced himself that his encounters with Mr. Wiley had been loving. It was only in the fall of 2023, after therapy, that he admitted to himself that the incidents had been assaults and told a friend what had happened.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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      Man Charged in Bronx Sexual Assault Partly Captured on Disturbing Video

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      The video shows him throwing a belt around a woman’s neck, pulling her to the ground and dragging her along.The video captures a disturbing sequence: A woman can be seen walking along a sidewalk in the Bronx on an early May morning, when a man, his face covered, approaches from behind. He throws a looped belt around the woman’s neck and yanks her to the ground. She loses consciousness. He drags her in between two parked cars.Then, police said, he sexually assaulted her.The scenes captured on the video sowed fear among many residents of the South Bronx. On Saturday, the police said they had arrested a man — Kashaan Parks, 39, also of the Bronx — in connection with the assault.Mr. Parks faces several charges, including rape, assault, strangulation, sex abuse and harassment. The police said Mr. Parks had been arrested two other times: Once in 2018 for domestic assault, and in 2013 for theft of service in the transit system. It was not immediately clear if there was any connection between Mr. Parks and the woman.The incident took place around 5 a.m. on May 1 near the intersection of East 152nd Street and Third Avenue. The woman, who was not named, went to Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx after the attack. She did not report the assault to the authorities, Joseph Kenny, the chief of detectives for the Police Department, told reporters at a briefing on Friday.The police learned about the assault when they saw the footage caught on security cameras that was being shared online, Chief Kenny said.Officers tried to determine where the video came from, he said. Then an officer from a Bronx precinct where the woman was assaulted realized they already knew where the victim was: in police custody for an unrelated minor offense, Chief Kenny 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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      Darius Paduch Found Guilty of Sexual Abuse of Patients

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      Darius Paduch, who worked at several leading New York hospitals, has been accused of molesting hundreds of patients over 17 years.A urologist who worked at two prominent New York hospitals was found guilty on Wednesday of sexually abusing seven patients, including five who were minors when the abuse began.The doctor, Darius A. Paduch, 56, has been accused of molesting hundreds of young men and boys between 2006 and 2023. Prosecutors arrested Dr. Paduch last year, saying he had persuaded victims to travel to his offices in New York and New Jersey so he could abuse them under the guise of medical care.Dr. Paduch “leveraged his position of trust as a medical doctor for his own perverse gratification,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement on Wednesday. “For years, patients seeking needed medical care, many of them children, left his office as victims.”A Manhattan jury found Dr. Paduch, of North Bergen, N.J., guilty of six counts of persuading, inducing, enticing or coercing an individual to travel to engage in unlawful sexual activity and five counts of using an interstate facility to persuade, induce, entice or coerce a minor to engage in unlawful sexual activity.Anthony T. DiPietro, a lawyer representing more than 225 former patients ages 12 to 60 who have filed civil lawsuits, said it was going to take time for many of his clients to process the news. But, he said, “we are all grateful that Darius Paduch will never be able to do this to a single patient in New York State or anyplace else ever again.”He added that it was common that victims of sexual abuse told no one. “They’ve been carrying this burden around with them, in some instances, for five years, 10 years or more,” 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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      The Offense That Harvey Weinstein Can Never Be Convicted Of

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      The movie producer won his appeal in New York on Thursday. But his story, at its core, is about work, and it can’t be measured by a criminal court.For the first time in years, there is a chance that Harvey Weinstein could walk free.His New York conviction for sex crimes was overturned on Thursday. Manhattan’s district attorney says he wants to retry Mr. Weinstein, but that seems, at most, a maybe. The former film producer still has a long sentence to serve in Los Angeles, though next month he is expected to appeal that conviction on grounds similar to those that were successful in New York. His lawyer is the same one who got Bill Cosby’s conviction tossed out.Many of Mr. Weinstein’s accusers say they are horrified. Even some of the seven judges who participated in the decision were outraged. The majority — ruling that his trial was unfair because it introduced witnesses separate from the central charges — prevailed by a single vote, 4 to 3. The dissenting judges described that decision as “oblivious,” “naïve” and “endangering decades of progress.” They have joined a roiling debate about what the standard of evidence in sex crimes trials should be.But criminal convictions have never seemed like the ultimate measure of Mr. Weinstein’s behavior. Whether he remains a felon or not, he can never be tried for the most overarching offense he is accused of.That is because, at its core, the Weinstein story — along with its greatest impact — is all about work.“A lot of these stories are about what’s been lost career-wise, and there’s no criminal remedy that is going to get at that,” Deborah Tuerkheimer, a law professor at Northwestern, said in an interview.Back when Mr. Weinstein was at the height of his power, he had many gifts as a producer. But where he stood above others was in his ability to make careers. He hired and molded Matt Damon, Michelle Williams, Jennifer Lawrence, Quentin Tarantino and some of the most successful producers working today. He invented the Oscar campaign as we know it. At those awards, he was thanked more often than God.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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      Can Weinstein’s Overturned New York Conviction Help Him Appeal California Case?

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      Harvey Weinstein faced similar sex crimes charges in New York and California, but the arguments used to overturn one case may not help in the other.The decision by New York’s top court on Thursday to overturn the conviction of Harvey Weinstein on sex crime charges raised many thorny legal questions. Perhaps chief among them: Will it bolster his chances of a successful appeal in a similar case in California?Mr. Weinstein’s lawyer in California, Jennifer Bonjean, plans to file that appeal next month, and has said she believes the New York decision helps her chances of winning. In both cases, prosecutors offered witnesses who said they had been assaulted by Mr. Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood producer, even though their accounts were not tied to criminal charges.Prosecutors in sexual assault cases sometimes use such witnesses to establish a pattern of behavior, but it can be a risky move because defendants are typically supposed to be judged only on the crimes with which they have been charged. The tactic was at the heart of the 4-to-3 decision on Thursday by New York’s Court of Appeals, which concluded that the judge who presided over Mr. Weinstein’s case in 2020 had deprived him of a fair trial by allowing those witnesses to testify.Mr. Weinstein is expected to appear in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Wednesday for a procedural hearing that is the first step for prosecutors to restart the criminal case to try him again.New York and California law differ on the crucial issue of witnesses. The office of the Los Angeles district attorney, George Gascón, said that California’s law, unlike New York’s, allows evidence, at a judge’s discretion, that shows a defendant’s “propensity” to commit sexual 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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      NYC School Crossing Guard Charged With Trying to Lure What He Thought Was Teen Into Sex

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      Jared Jeridore, who worked near a Queens school, was arrested after complaints about him led the police to have an officer pose as a teenage girl, officials said.A Queens man who worked as a school crossing guard was charged on Wednesday with attempted rape and other crimes after he tried to lure an undercover police officer he believed to be a 14-year-old girl into a sexual act, officials said.The charges against the man, Jared Jeridore, included attempted use of a child in a sexual performance, attempted dissemination of indecent material to minors and official misconduct, Melinda Katz, the Queens district attorney, said.“Young people need to be able to trust the adults who are charged with keeping them safe,” Ms. Katz said in a statement. “This defendant is accused of violating that trust with someone he thought was a teenager.”Mr. Jeridore, 24, of Jamaica, made an initial appearance before Judge Julieta Lozano of Queens Criminal Court on Wednesday. She ordered him to return to court in June. A lawyer for Mr. Jeridore did not immediately respond to a request for comment.School crossing guards are part-time Police Department employees who earn $18 an hour. Mr. Jeridore, who worked near a school in Jamaica, was suspended from his job after being arrested on Wednesday and subsequently resigned, a police spokeswoman said. It was unclear how long he had been a crossing guard.The undercover investigation began after underage individuals complained about Mr. Jeridore to the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau, according to a criminal complaint.On the morning of March 28, the complaint says, an undercover officer posing as a 14-year-old girl met Mr. Jeridore at a Jamaica intersection about a block from a secondary school. The complaint does not name the school but lists an address that belongs to York Early College Academy.On April 18, the undercover officer and Mr. Jeridore exchanged Instagram screen names, according to the complaint. That afternoon, the complaint says, they walked together from the same intersection to a nearby bus stop, and Mr. Jeridore interlocked his arm with the officer’s.Around 11:30 that night, Mr. Jeridore and the officer had a video call, the complaint says. Mr. Jeridore, believing the officer was 14 and soon to turn 15, asked her to join him in a sex act, according to the complaint.Over the next several days, Mr. Jeridore sent messages via Instagram to a second officer who was posing as the first one, the complaint says. In the messages, he described the sexual interactions he hoped to have and sent the officer nude photos and sexually explicit video, according to the complaint.On Tuesday, the complaint says, Mr. Jeridore called the first undercover officer several times and asked her to meet him at a local hotel to have sex. Officers arrested Mr. Jeridore when he arrived, according to the complaint. More