Avenatti: New client will go public with Kavanaugh accusations by Wednesday

Avenatti: New client will go public with Kavanaugh accusations by Wednesday
By Emily Birnbaum - 09/24/18

 

Michael Avenatti, the lawyer who says he has "credible information" about more sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, said Monday that he expects his new client will appear for an on-camera interview within the next 48 hours.

 

Avenatti told The Hill that he anticipates his client will go public with her accusation against Kavanaugh in a television interview within the next two days.

"We anticipate that that is what is going to occur," Avenatti said, confirming an earlier report from Politico.

He said he does not know which media outlet she will appear on, adding, "We have not finalized the details."....

 

Avenatti on Sunday tweeted a screenshot of an email he sent to Mike Davis, the chief counsel for nominations for the Senate Judiciary Committee. In the email, Avenatti said he is “aware of significant evidence of multiple house parties in the Washington, D.C. area during the early 1980s, during which Brett Kavanaugh, Mark Judge and others would participate in the targeting of women with alcohol/drugs to allow a ‘train’ of men to subsequently gang rape them.”

"There are multiple witnesses that will corroborate these facts and each of them must be called to testify publicly,” Avenatti wrote.

 

Avenatti has declined to disclose most of the details about his client, though he told Politico that "she’s had multiple security clearances over the years, including public trust and secret security clearance."

Avenatti's client would be the third woman to publicly accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct....

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/408151-avenatti-new-client-will-go-public-with-kavanaugh-accusations-in-next-48

Avenatti promises new Kavanaugh accuser to come forward in next 48 hours
Sophie Tatum By Sophie Tatum, CNN Mon September 24, 2018
Washington (CNN)

 

Michael Avenatti said Monday night that he has new information regarding allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Avenatti, the lawyer also representing adult film star Stormy Daniels who is suing President Donald Trump, said on CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time" that he has multiple clients and "at least one" is prepared to come forward publicly within the next 48 hours.

 

"At this point, Chris, it's clients. We're going to make a public disclosure within the next 48 hours of detailed allegations, as well as the identity of at least one of my clients relating to what she witnessed and experienced concerning Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge, and ultimately we're going to let the American public decide who's telling the truth," Avenatti told CNN's Chris Cuomo.
Avenatti had previously alluded to representing an additional accuser who would be coming forward soon. In an interview with Fox News earlier Monday, Kavanaugh vehemently denied allegations Avenatti alluded to on Twitter.

 

....Despite Republican efforts to keep Kavanaugh's confirmation on track, the process continues to be a slog following accusations of sexual assault and inappropriate sexual behavior from two women who have come forward on the record.

 

In the first alleged instance, the accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, said Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her while the two were at a party during their high school years. She said Judge was in the room when the alleged assault happened. Judge has denied the allegation.

 

The second alleged incident took place while Kavanaugh and that accuser, Deborah Ramirez, were attending Yale. Ramirez claimed Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a college party.
Kavanaugh has repeatedly denied the allegations.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/24/politics/michael-avenatti-brett-kavanaugh-cnntv/index.html

 

Record sexual harassment settlement exposes byzantine congressional process, Attorney still waiting on expert report in sex cult abuse case

Record sexual harassment settlement exposes byzantine congressional process
by Leigh Ann Caldwell Dec 17 2017

WASHINGTON — Of all the secret deals cut on behalf of accused members of congress, the one that resulted in the largest settlement yet uncovered may be the most surprising. The details provide a window into a process so opaque, convoluted and confusing that even the accused congressman was left in the dark about exactly how and why his accuser ended up being paid $220,000 for her claim.

With new harassment accusations being revealed on a nearly daily basis in Congress, documents obtained by NBC News from this one case shed light on how taxpayer money ends up being used to essentially sweep such incidents under a bureaucratic rug with little accountability....

The Complaint

In 2011, Winsome Packer, a congressional staffer who worked for the United States Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (known as the Helsinki Commission) filed a complaint against the commission, alleging that its chairman at the time, Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., made unwanted sexual advances toward her and that she was threatened with retaliation.

The details of Packer’s specific allegations are recorded in the complaint she also brought in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Publicly filed court documents in that lawsuit show that Packer alleged that she “was forced to endure” repeated “unwelcome sexual advances, crude sexual comments and unwelcome touching” by Hastings. In describing the incidents, Packer alleged that Hastings had hugged her multiple times, sometimes in front of witnesses at public events, pressing his whole body against her, and his face to her face.

Packer also claimed that after she complained to the commission’s staff director, she was subject to threats of retaliation by both the director and Hastings himself, including “threats of termination.”

Hastings, who has been in Congress since 1993, has denied Packer’s allegations. He called them “malicious” and “absolutely false” in a letter obtained by NBC News....

The Office of Congressional Ethics referred the matter to the House Ethics Committee in 2010. After reviewing more than one thousand pages of documents and interviewing eight witnesses, the committee closed the case after finding that while the congressman admitted to having made some unprofessional comments, it had found “no additional evidence supporting [Packer’s ] allegations.” ....

Packer eventually received a settlement payment of $220,000, an amount confirmed by documents reviewed by NBC News and the largest known about since the Congressional Accountability Act was passed in 1995.

One document obtained by NBC News details early draft terms of Packer’s settlement, and it is one of few such documents that have become public. The others have not been released because confidentiality requirements, established by Congress and signed into federal law as the Congressional Accountability Act, bind accuser, accused and other legal entities from disclosing any terms or details.

Despite these confidentiality requirements, Packer said she had decided to speak out because the environment has changed for accusers and she has little to lose. Packer, 60, who worked for the commission from 2007 until 2014, said she has not worked since the settlement was reached nearly four years ago, and is now living with her sister in Florida. ...

Congress has wrestled with these issues in a more urgent way since the recent wave of sexual misconduct allegations began sweeping through virtually every sector of America over the past months, including several high-profile cases that have brought down members of the House and Senate.

Rep. Gregg Harper, R-Miss., chairman of the House Administration Committee, told NBC News that he will introduce bipartisan legislation next week to reform the entire adjudication process for accusers and the accused as a way to provide more transparency to the public....

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/record-sexual-harassment-settlement-exposes-byzantine-congressional-process-n829401

Attorney still waiting on expert report in sex cult abuse case
By FELIX SARVERE Dec. 14, 2017

JOLIET – A five-year-old case involving a woman charged with sexual abuse of an underage boy as part of a sex cult ritual may come closer to concluding next year.

On Thursday, Daniel Locallo, attorney for Margarita Hernandez, 38, a former Troy Township Democratic committeewoman charged with aggravated criminal sexual abuse, told a Will County judge he was still waiting to receive a report from a psychological expert on Hernandez that could be used at trial or for legal mitigation....

Hernandez was arrested in October 2012 after her 81-year-old boyfriend John Gabriel was investigated by the FBI for teen sex videos made at their home. She has been free on bond.

Since her arrest in 2012, the case has yet to go trial. The case was scheduled for jury trial at least twice, according to court records.

Gabriel, a retired journalist for The Times Weekly and Weekly Reporter, recorded sexual activities of Hernandez and others, which he claimed was a religious ritual, according to court files.

Will County prosecutors have said video was seized of Hernandez having sex with two boys who appear younger than 18.

Gabriel was convicted in 2015 of manufacturing child pornography for making videos allegedly showing Hernandez having sex with teenage boys. He was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.
http://www.theherald-news.com/2017/12/14/attorney-still-waiting-on-expert-report-in-sex-cult-abuse-case/axmhnat/

Boy Scout files reveal repeat child abuse by sexual predators

Report: Boy Scout files reveal repeat child abuse
Associated Press – Sun, Aug 5, 2012

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Internal documents from the Boy Scouts of America reveal more than 125 cases in which men suspected of molestation allegedly continued to abuse Scouts, despite a blacklist meant to protect boys from sexual predators.

A Los Angeles Times review....of more than 1,200 files from 1970 to 1991 found suspected abusers regularly remained in the organization after officials were first presented with sexual misconduct allegations.

Predators moved from troop to troop because of clerical errors, computer glitches or the Scouts' failure to check the blacklist, known as the "perversion files," the newspaper said.

In at least 50 cases, the Scouts expelled suspected abusers, only to discover they had re-entered the organization and were accused of molesting again.

In other cases, officials failed to document reports of abuse in the first place, letting offenders stay in the program until new allegations came to light, the Times reported.

One scoutmaster was expelled in 1970 for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy in Indiana. After being convicted of the crime, he went on to join two troops in Illinois between 1971 and 1988. He later admitted to molesting more than 100 boys, was convicted of the sexual assault of a Scout in 1989 and was sentenced to 100 years in prison, according to his file and court records.

In 1991, a Scout leader convicted of abusing a boy in Minnesota returned to his old troop shortly after getting out of jail.

http://news.yahoo.com/report-boy-scout-files-reveal-repeat-child-abuse-181201518.html

Boy Scout files reveal repeat child abuse by sexual predators

Los Angeles Times review of Boy Scout documents shows that a blacklist meant to protect boys from sexual predators too often failed in its mission.

By Jason Felch and Kim Christensen, Los Angeles Times

August 5, 2012
For nearly a century, the Boy Scouts of America has relied on a confidential blacklist known as the "perversion files" as a crucial line of defense against sexual predators.

Scouting officials say they've used the files to prevent hundreds of men who had been expelled for alleged sexual abuse from returning to the ranks. They've fought hard in court to keep the records from public view, saying confidentiality was needed to protect victims, witnesses and anyone falsely accused....

A Los Angeles Times review of more than 1,200 files dating from 1970 to 1991 found more than 125 cases across the country in which men allegedly continued to molest Scouts after the organization was first presented with detailed allegations of abusive behavior.

Predators slipped back into the program by falsifying personal information or skirting the registration process. Others were able to jump from troop to troop around the country thanks to clerical errors, computer glitches or the Scouts' failure to check the blacklist.

In some cases, officials failed to document reports of abuse in the first place, letting offenders stay in the organization until new allegations surfaced. In others, officials documented abuse but merely suspended the accused leader or allowed him to continue working with boys while on "probation."

In at least 50 cases, the Boy Scouts expelled suspected abusers, only to discover later that they had reentered the program and were accused of molesting again.

One scoutmaster was expelled in 1970 for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy in Indiana. Even after being convicted of the crime, he went on to join two troops in Illinois between 1971 and 1988. He later admitted to molesting more than 100 boys, was convicted of the sexual assault of a Scout in 1989 and was sentenced to 100 years in prison, according to his file and court records.

In 1991, a Scout leader convicted of abusing a boy in Minnesota returned to his old troop — right after getting out of jail....

Richard Stenger, the head of a unit of the Sea Scouts — part of the Boy Scouts — was charged in 1971 with tying up and fondling three boys. Police found bondage equipment and books on pedophilia in his house.

He was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and a judge sentenced him to four years' probation, his file shows. The Scouts decided to suspend him during that period. But when the court-ordered probation ended, a local Scout executive and several parents successfully requested that the national office lift the suspension.

"I feel quite confident that no further problems will arise," wrote the local Scout executive, whose name is blacked out in the heavily redacted file.

Fourteen years later, in 1989, a parent notified the Boy Scouts that the 320-pound Stenger had padlocked her 11-year-old Scout in a harness and watched him dangle for 15 minutes during a boating trip, according to Stenger's file. Scouts notified police, who recovered from Stenger's home dozens of restraints and hundreds of images of children in bondage, including one of a blindfolded 6-year-old tied to a bed.

Two dozen former and current Scouts came forward to say they had been abused by Stenger as long ago as 1958.
  http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-boyscouts-20120805-m,0,5822319.story