A fashion model in her late 20s, she found herself chatting casually about her family and career with the OB-GYN at Columbia University's prestigious hospital system, who showed her photos of his wife and daughters. She could catch him for appointments around her erratic schedule. She received free birth control from him."I felt comfortable asking him any questions I had about my health," Heckman, now 36, said in an interview with CNN. "He was so open."But every once in a while, according to her interview and court documents, he would startle her with an inappropriate question or comment, asking about the quality of her sex life, or saying, "Your boyfriend is so lucky to have you." She says the comments also came during exams: "He would be crazy to lose you." "You're perfection." Heckman said it took a turn from inappropriate to unacceptable in 2012.As often, Heckman was the last patient of the day. Hadden told the nurse she could go home; she left reluctantly, looking troubled, Heckman said. Now it was just Hadden and Heckman, whose feet were in the stirrups and legs were draped. Hadden dipped his head out of view and licked her, she said. "At first it was gloves on, and all of that," Heckman said. "And then it transitioned to no gloves, a tongue and a beard. … And I recoiled." She said she abruptly stepped off the exam table, got dressed, left the office and never returned. Heckman said she would later learn that she wasn't the only one.Three years later, in 2015, she came across a news story about how Hadden stood accused in a sex-abuse case involving six of his patients. Their allegations had mirrored hers: that Hadden had fondled and sexually assaulted them during examinations, after nurses had left the room. The next year, he pleaded guilty to two counts: criminal sexual act in the third degree and forcible touching. It seemed to be case closed.But this past January, Evelyn Yang, wife of former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, came forward in an exclusive CNN interview, saying that she, too, was sexually abused by Hadden. Suddenly the terms of the plea deal sparked fresh outrage: Hadden had surrendered his medical license, but received no prison time, probation or community service. A torrent of critics blasted the Manhattan District Attorney's office for what they believe to be a light sentence.Since Yang's interview, nearly 40 new Hadden accusers have brought their allegations to attorney Anthony DiPietro, who filed a civil suit against Hadden and Columbia University in 2019. DiPietro says he plans to add them to the civil suit, which would bring the total number of plaintiffs to about 70. Two of the plaintiffs were minors — ages 15 and 16 — at the time of the alleged abuse, he said.Sexual assault survivors and their supporters held a protest in January saying the Hadden case proves Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has failed in protecting victims. The New York City Council's women's caucus called for Vance's resignation, saying the Hadden plea deal fits a pattern of lenience by the DA towards wealthy, white men.Vance has refused CNN's multiple request for interviews. After CNN notified the office of Evelyn Yang's public allegations last month, Vance said in a statement, "Because a conviction is never a guaranteed outcome in a criminal trial, our primary concern was holding him accountable and making sure he could never do this again — which is why we insisted on a felony conviction and permanent surrender of his medical license."While we stand by our legal analysis and resulting disposition of this difficult case, we regret that this resolution has caused survivors pain," Vance said.His office has encouraged any survivors to call the DA's sex crimes unit.Heckman is among dozens of new accusers who want Hadden to be prosecuted again; she says she plans to present her case to the DA directly."I want justice served," said Heckman. "He's raped, molested all these women and nothing's been done and that makes me furious." The 61-year-old Hadden has denied the assault allegations in court documents, aside from the two counts to which he pleaded guilty. CNN reached out to Hadden and the attorney who represented him in the civil case; those efforts were unsuccessful.

"I'm thinking to myself … I want his hands off of me."

One of the new accusers is Jessica Chambers, now a substitute elementary-school teacher in Wyoming.Chambers was scrolling through her phone last month when she came across the news story about Yang. At the sight of a photo of Hadden in court, she said, her stomach knotted."I was like, 'Holy sh*t,'" she said.Though she had seen nurse practitioners at Planned Parenthood, Chambers had never had a gynecological exam when she first stepped into Hadden's office in 2004. She was a 23-year-old student at the City College of New York. Her first impression: "He was very present. With some doctors, they just get you in and out. (But) he was just very there with you. … He was very friendly."Chambers said two things initially struck her as odd during the exam, for which a chaperone was present: Hadden was chatty, and the procedure seemed to go on and on."He had his fingers inside of me — I couldn't see if he was wearing gloves," she said. "And he had an extended conversation with me while he had his fingers inside of me. … I remember wanting to get out of that position."Chambers said they talked about how she'd just broken up with her boyfriend. She remembers Hadden asking her if she was able to climax, "and how was I able to climax," she said."I'm thinking it's very weird," she said. But "he's a doctor, we're in Columbia — clearly what's going on here must be normal and natural."At some point, she said — while she was sitting on the exam table, and after the chaperone had left — he grabbed her leg."There was an opening," she said. "Maybe I asked a question, and the question was license to physically show me." "He had me somewhat stuck," she said, adding that she felt uncomfortable, but "I didn't know whether it was just me being naive and I didn't want to do anything that would be weird."Hadden, she said, began explaining how arousal happens while extensively touching her vagina — this time with ungloved hands. "I mean now, in hindsight, I'm like, he was trying to arouse me while talking to me — under the guise of education," Chambers said. "I'm thinking to myself, this is enough — I want his hands off of me. … And it went on for — it seemed like an extended period of time."Dr. David Shalowitz, who chairs the ethics committee of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said allegations like the ones brought forth in the Hadden case are deeply concerning."There are bright lines," he told CNN. "Ungloved rectal or genital exams are not acceptable ever. … Any exam that's done should be with consent and a clear explanation for why it's being done. Patients have the right to refuse any procedure or exam, and patients should feel empowered to say no."Chambers said she would like to see Hadden face trial."When you have this many people coming forward, I feel like you should be held to account again," she said. "And actually be held to account — like, go to jail."DiPietro said all of his clients want the DA to reopen a criminal case against Hadden. He added that he plans to submit documentation to demand that Vance's office do so. "He got something that sounds [more] like an orchestrated retirement than an actual sentence for a serial sexual predator," DiPietro said.

"It's like he knew … that he was protected."

Columbia has denied in legal filings the civil suit's allegations that the university did nothing to stop the "serial sexual abuse" on "countless occasions." In 2012, Hadden was arrested in his office after a patient told police that he had licked her vagina during an exam. The arrest was voided, and Hadden returned to his job at the medical clinic for more than a month. During that time, he allegedly assaulted Yang and at least one other patient."Can you imagine the audacity of a man who continues to do this after being arrested?" Yang said. "It's like he knew that he wouldn't face any repercussions. That he was protected. That he wouldn't be fired." Columbia University responded to CNN's request for comment with a statement on Thursday, saying, "Nothing is more important to us than the safety of our patients. We are committed to treating every patient with respect and delivering care to the highest professional standards. "We condemn sexual misconduct in any form and extend our deepest apologies to the women whose trust Robert Hadden violated and to their families."Another accuser, who asked not to be named out of privacy concerns,Read More – Source

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Enter Anna Calcaterra, the 16-year-old daughter of NBC Sports reporter Craig Calcaterra and, apparently, an aspiring cartographer. We know that because Calcaterra found a map his daughter made on her desk on Wednesday afternoon and tweeted it — taking Twitter by storm.At a cursory glance, it looks almost normal: There's the familiar jut of Florida, the Great Lakes, Mexico and South America. But look again. Texas is too long. Idaho is, too. Why? Don't ask. Alaska has been erased as if it sunk into the sea. And don't expect to see Wyoming here — Anna doesn't believe the state is real. The teen laid waste to the Western Hemisphere in an inspired and existentially upsetting map, which has since enlightened and enraged hundreds of thousands of Twitter users, inspiring at least two separate Twitter trends.She told CNN she was inspired by people who'd previously attempted to label the US and "failed miserably." Look now, at what used to be the Florida Panhandle as it juts across the Gulf coastlines that once belonged to Alabama and Louisiana. The purpose? To begin a second civil war and force Florida to secede. Natch. And if you've ever visited Ohio and loved it so much you'd wished there had been a second Ohio to discover, Anna heard you. The Four Corners, once notable for being the point where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah met, has been replaced by an Ohio 2. Anna declined to elaborate on the purpose of a second Ohio when asked by CNN. "Does anyone really want to know more about Ohio 2? Nobody even wants to hear about Ohio 1," she said. Also missing Read More – Source

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The vulnerabilities could allow nation-state hackers to view, block or even change smartphone ballots before they're counted, according to a new paper written by three researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.The app is designed by the company Voatz, whose technology has been piloted so far in West Virginia, Colorado and Utah.The company called the report "flawed" in a statement posted to its website Thursday."We want to be clear that all nine of our governmental pilot elections conducted to date, involving less than 600 voters, have been conducted safely and securely with no reported issues," Voatz said in the statement. "The researchers' true aim is to deliberately disrupt the election process, to sow doubt in the security of our election infrastructure, and to spread fear and confusion."The report comes amid rising concern about the use of apps and online voting tools in the 2020 election following the failure of reporting tools in the Iowa caucuses.Last year, Utah County, Utah, began using Voatz for disabled and military voters based overseas. In an interview, County Clerk Amelia Powers Gardner said Voatz made more sense than the previous system, which required remote voters to submit their ballots by email.A review of Utah County's implementation of Voatz — prior to the MIT report's publication — did not uncover any problems, Gardner told CNN. Gardner said that in phone conversations with the MIT researchers, it became clear they preferred voting to be done the traditional way, by pencil and paper. But Gardner said that isn't feasible for Utahns living abroad."I have a legal obligation to provide our military members overseas an electronic form of a ballot," she said, "and if it's not this, it's email — which they agreed is not as secure."The researchers' conclusions about security risks in the app were based on a reverse-engineered version of Voatz's Android app, which they ran in a simulated environment. According to the study, a hacker who gains control of a smartphone with the app installed could interfere in the voting process by altering ballots or figuring out which candidate a voter supports. "Which means they could stop your ballot if they knew you were going to vote for someone they didn't like," Mike Specter, one of the authors of the report, told CNN.Other election security experts who have reviewed the MIT paper say it appears solid. "This study from MIT appears to have been structured with care in the way that the analysis was conducted," said Andrea Matwyshyn, an election security expert at Penn State University.On a conference call with reporters Thursday, however, Voatz criticized the report's methodology. Company executives said the researchers had used an outdated version of the software and that some of the issues they found had already been patched. Voatz also accused the researchers of making "hypothetical" claims based on their simulation, rather than having the app interact with an actual Voatz server."We already have this server available," said Nimit Sawhney, Voatz's CEO. "It's to our public bug bounty program. Anybody who wishes to sign up, test the apps over there, against the real server with full functionality, is able to do that."The company declined to comment further.While participating in the bug bounty program would allow researchers to verify how Voatz's app interacts with the company's servers, the law largely prohibits researchers from testing the servers themselves, said Eric Mill, a cybersecurity expert who has administered technology programs for the federal government."The fact that the app happens to talk to the server isn't the same as giving permission to research the real server," said Mill. Critics say Voatz should be more transparent about its technology and those it has tapped to perform independent audits. They also say Voatz previously reported a University of Michigan researcher to the FBI for condRead More – Source

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The 38-year-old suspect was arrested Friday on multiple felony charges, according to the Pierce County Sheriff's Department. Her 16-year-old daughter was also taken into custody.Authorities began investigating after a woman called 911 last week and reported feeling "numbness, drowsiness, instability on her feet and was vomiting," the sheriff's department said. The victim said she believed she had been drugged by another woman she met through a Facebook group, according to police. The suspect advertised newborn photoshoots, saying they would be free because she was trying to build a portfolio, police said. The suspect visited the woman's home three times, according to police.She took selfies with the victim's baby and was seen wiping her fingerprints off the items she touched, police said. On her third visit, police say the suspect and her daughter offered the victim a cupcake which made the victim feel numb and drowsy.She asked the suspect to leave and noticed her house keys had been stolen, police said. The victim called 911, police said, and later told authorities she believed she had been drugged. "Our detectives have workeRead More – Source

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Issued on: 14/02/2020 – 05:27Modified: 14/02/2020 – 06:00

US Attorney General Bill Barr on Thursday delivered a highly unusual public rebuke of Donald Trump, saying the president's tweets were making his job at the Justice Department "impossible."

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"I have a problem with some of the tweets," Barr said in an interview with ABC News, adding: "I cannot do my job here at the department with a constant background commentary that undercuts me."

"I think it's time to stop the tweeting about Department of Justice criminal cases," said Barr.

His interview came as Trump stands accused of interfering with the sentencing recommendation for his former advisor, Roger Stone — prompting four Justice Department prosecutors to resign from the case this week.

The outburst was all the more remarkable as Barr has emerged as a powerful defender of Trump, earning the nickname of the "president's attorney" from critics.

Barr has been at the center of allegations that he decided — allegedly under pressure from Trump — to overrule his own prosecutors and seek a lighter prison sentence for Stone.

He has previously been criticized by Democrats and legal experts for seeming to assist Trump during the independent investigation into whether the president was helped by a Russian influence campaign during the 2016 election.

The death of Damaris Rodriguez, who was suffering from symptoms of psychosis, followed four days of "inexcusable neglect and appalling conditions at the South Correctional Entity Jail," the lawsuit says. CNN affiliate KIRO first reported her death this week.On December 30, 2017, Rodriguez suffered from a mental health episode while at her home in the Washington city of SeaTac, a suburb of Seattle, according to the lawsuit. Rodriguez's husband, Reynaldo, called 911 and requested medical assistance. Damaris Rodriguez had previously suffered from bipolar disorder, and had recently developed a metabolic disorder that caused "psychosis symptoms," the lawsuit says. However, according to the family's attorney, Nathan Bingham, law enforcement arrived before an ambulance and Rodriguez was arrested on suspicion of fourth degree assault against her husband. While officers were at the home responding to the call, her husband, however, insisted Rodriguez's actions had not been intentional and that she was having a mental health crisis, repeatedly telling police that he did not want her to be arrested. According to the lawsuit, Reynaldo "has trouble communicating about complex topics in English."The King County Sheriff's Office had determined the incoming call to be a domestic violence call and, according to Ryan Abbott with the King County Sheriff's Office, with all domestic violence calls, Washington state law requires law enforcement to make an arrest if responding officers determine there is any kind of complaint of pain, or that an assault has occurred.King County Sheriff's deputies arrested Rodriguez and took her to the South Correctional Entity Jail (SCORE).

'Starvation and sleep deprivation eventually took their toll'

Rodriguez spent four days alone in a cell, where video surveillance footage shows she was largely naked, surrounded by her own urine and vomit, and having what appear to be hallucinations, according to the lawsuit. Attorney Nathan Bingham said though Washington court rules dictate that an arraignment take place before the end of the next business day, Rodriguez was never taken to court. The lawsuit alleges that "starvation and sleep deprivation eventually took their toll," and Rodriguez developed a metabolic condition called ketoacidosis, which leads to water intoxication.According to the complaint, corrections officers and medical staff knew of the danger of water intoxication, but did not conduct proper welfare checks, instead moving Rodriguez to a cell without a sink, where she later died on January 4, 2018. The lawsuit alleges that Rodriguez died as a result of water intoxication. The King County Medical Examiner's Officer determined her death to be a sudden death during excited delirium and has classified it as natural. Attorney Nathan Bingham said there were numerous log entries on welfare checks that corrections officers signed off on which the lawsuit alleges never occurred, including an entry claiming that Rodriguez was offered and refused water almost an hour after she had stopped breathing.The lawsuit claims that Rodriguez died, because the facility and their healthcare provider NaphCare, operate under "the perverse economic incentives of a for-profit jail. SCORE and NaphCare cut corners and make staffing policies and medical decisions based on their financial interests — not the health of their inmates." NaphCare, the company that helps correctional facilities like SCORE "manage their healthcare needs by offering an exceptional team of medicalRead More – Source

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Ricky Davis was convicted of second-degree murder in the 1985 fatal stabbing of 54-year-old Jane Hylton. He walked free from prison Thursday, CNN affiliate KOVR reported, hours after becoming the first person in California to be exonerated with the help of genetic genealogy — the combination of DNA analysis and family tree research.In 1985, Hylton was found dead inside an El Dorado Hills, California, home that she shared with her daughter, Davis and his then-girlfriend, and another woman, according to the Northern California Innocence Project, which represented Davis.Davis and his girlfriend, who were returning from a party, along with Hylton's daughter, who had been out with friends, found Hylton dead in one of the bedrooms, the NCIP said.The case went cold until 1999, when investigators reopened the case. Police interrogated Davis' girlfriend several times and she ultimately changed her story, implicating Davis and herself in Hylton's death, the NCIP said. In 2005, Davis was convicted and sentenced to 16 years to life in state prison, authorities said. His girlfriend received a year in county jail.After his conviction, the Northern California Innocence Project took on Davis' case and requested the El Dorado County district attorney do post-conviction DNA testing. In 2014, forensic experts began an "extremely meticulous process" of examining the evidence of the case and eventually found DNA that did not belong to Davis, said Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, who has been leading the efforts to use DNA evidence in cold cases.Davis' case was reopened and last year, a judge reversed his conviction and ordered a new trial, Schubert said.He is now the first person in California, and the second in the country, to be exonerated after the use of genetic genealogy, Schubert said.Last year, a man in Idaho who was convicted in the 1996 killing of Angie Dodge was exonerated after spending 22 years in jail, according to the Idaho State Police."Investigative genetic genealogy, just like traditional DNA, is about one thing: finding the truth no matter what it is," Schuber said.A new suspect in Hylton's murder was identified and has been arrested in Roseville, California, according to El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson.Read More – Source

cnn

Issued on: 14/02/2020 – 13:44Modified: 14/02/2020 – 13:46

In this edition, we report on the public outrage over the brutal murder of a young Mexican woman that has highlighted the extent of femicide in Mexico. Plus the latest figures from the World Economic Forum reveal that in terms of economic participation, the gender gap will take 257 years to close. We talk to economist, Anne Boring, on wRead More – Source

france24

The cases include 62,000 felony convictions for cases — including those for marijuana sales and cultivation — dating back to 1961, and about 4,000 misdemeanor possession cases, District Attorney Jackie Lacey's office said."The dismissal of tens of thousands of old cannabis-related convictions in Los Angeles County will bring much-needed relief to communities of color that disproportionately suffered the unjust consequences of our nation's drug laws," Lacey said in a news release. "I am privileged to be part of a system dedicated to finding innovative solutions and implementing meaningful criminal justice reform that gives all people the support they need to build the life they deserve," she said.The 66,000 dismissals mean conviction relief for about 53,000 people. About 45% are Latino; 32% are black; and 20% are white, Lacey's office said.In November 2016, California voters OK'd the legalization of recreational marijuana by approving Proposition 64. The proposition's passage also allows people to petition the judicial system to have their old pot convictions expunged.In 2018, the state Legislature passed AB 1793, which required the state Department of Justice to scour California's crime records and find past cannabis convictions that are eligible to be expunged or downgraded to misdemeanors — generally, convictions for activities that would no longer be crimes under Proposition 64. The bill gives county prosecutors until this July to review the list and decide which dismissals would be appropriate. The state Department of Justice estimated in 2018 that more than 218,000 convictions statewide could be eligible for relief.Lacey's office said it worked with Read More – Source

cnn

Issued on: 13/02/2020 – 15:53Modified: 13/02/2020 – 15:55

The decade just passed has gone down as the hottest ever recorded on Earth. Our guest Gina McCarthy has devoted much of that last decade to shaping environmental policy in the US, and just took charge of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a US-based non-profit environmental advocacy group. While she regrets that the Trump administration is "trying to move us backwards", she is hopeful that different progressive movements can "band together". McCarthy also urges allRead More – Source

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