A New York jury has returned a verdict in the Harvey Weinstein trial. The disgraced movie mogul has been found guilty on two counts—a criminal sexual act against former Project Runway production assistant Miriam Haley and rape in the third degree of an unnamed victim. He was acquitted of two counts of predatory sexual assault and one count of rape in the first degree against Jessica Mann, according to CNN.
The jury of seven men and five women took five days to deliberate before the verdict was announced on February 24. Weinstein will face a minimum five-year sentence on the charges.
It was the stories of Weinstein’s harassment and abuse of women, as documented by Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor for the New York Times and Ronan Farrow for the New Yorker, which set off the new era of #MeToo. (The hashtag was first coined by activist Tarana Burke.) Weinstein denied their claims, but the prosecution called numerous witnesses during the trial, including actors like Annabella Sciorra and Mann to discuss their own allegations against Weinstein.
On Friday afternoon, according to the Hollywood Reporter, the jury was seemingly deadlocked on the two most serious charges of predatory sexual assault, which carried a possible life sentence, but was unanimous on the three lesser charges. Weinstein was ultimately acquitted of the two counts of predatory sexual assault, and an alternative count of rape in the first degree.
“Thank you for the care and concentration, concern, and attention you have given to your deliberations,” Judge James Burke reportedly told the jury before their dismissal.
Weinstein faces a minimum of five years in prison with a 25-year maximum for the sexual assault charge and 18 months to four years for the third-degree rape. Sentencing for Weinstein in this case is scheduled for March 11, and Weinstein still faces four charges of sexual assault in Los Angeles.
The war came to the Equatoria Region, where Diria lived, in 2016. That area sits at the bottom tip of South Sudan, and Diria resided in a village called Lasu Payam. When the fighting broke out, she, her four children, her sister-in-law, and some other women in the community hired two vehicles to drive them to the Ugandan border. Diria sat with about seven other people, including her sister-in-law. Her children were in the car ahead. She recalls to Glamour that the group had been driving for three days, inching past checkpoints, when soldiers blocked the path around Mugo Payam, about 50 miles from Uganda, directing their guns at the vehicle transporting her. It was early afternoon.
The soldiers’ faces were covered. They told everyone to get out of the car. Then the men were taken. Diria hasn’t seen them since. The soldiers separated the women into two groups. As she remembers it, the soldiers took the women to the bush and hit them with their guns. Diria still has back pain from the abuse. She heard shouting in Arabic, commands directed toward her to lie down. All the women were gang raped. Her sister-in-law, killed. After Diria had been sexually violated by five men, there was a cascade of shooting and the soldiers ran. Diria and three other women struggled back to the roadside and saw the driver of their car, shot. They managed to wave down a driver in another car headed for the border who let them hitch a ride. It took another two days to cross into Uganda.
In Keri, the transit center where refugees stay for days or weeks for processing before getting settled in one of 11 areas allocated to South Sudanese refugees in Uganda, Diria started throwing up. She went to the health center and took a pregnancy test. It was positive. The doctor offered to sell her a pill that he said would make the baby “go away” for 200,000 Ugandan Shillings (about $54), but she couldn’t afford that price. She tried drinking two cups of herbs she mixed together, hoping the cocktail would make her bleed. Nothing happened. She told her husband. He beat her. He went back to South Sudan. Now, he’s blocked her from calling him. Twice she almost hung herself. Then, she figured that after giving birth, she’d kill the child.
But when Abraham was born, he went to her to nurse. After he drank from her breast, she says couldn’t bring herself to kill him. Three months later he started to smile. That’s when she says she started to love him. During the first of three interviews with Glamour, Abraham toddles over to his mother and throws himself in her lap, face down, little arms splayed across her thighs. She looks down and the corners of her mouth tick up; her face is thick with affection. At church she holds him close throughout the entire service.
A new study of government data has revealed a heartbreaking and maddening statistic about women and sexual assault. Per PBS, new research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week notes that for one in 16 women, their first experience with sexual intercourse was forced with rape or coercion.
That number is shocking, but how did the researchers arrive at it? According to PBS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention questioned a sample of 13,310 women, ages 18 to 44 about marriage, divorce, family life, reproductive health, and more between 2011 and 2017. (It should be noted that men were not asked about their first time and women with no history of vaginal intercourse and girls 17 or younger were not included in this sample.)
Still, a horrific 6.5 percent of the women questioned said their first time having sex was non-consensual. If that number is representative, it would mean about 3.3 million women in America are in a similar position. The average age of the women at the time of these assaults was about 15.6, with seven percent of the women telling researchers they were younger than 10 at the time of the assault, 29 percent saying they were between the ages of 11 and 14, and 39 percent saying the event happened between the ages of 15 and 17.
“Quite honestly, that’s the tip of the iceberg,” Laura Hawks, the co-author on the report and a research fellow at Harvard Medical School, said, noting that if the sample had included girls or women older than 45 the number might be even higher.
As women know all too well, the effects of sexual assault are real and can last a lifetime. Thirty percent of women whose first experience of sex was rape or assault reported an unwanted pregnancy later on, compared to 18 percent of women who said they made a choice to have sex for the first time. Women forced into sex also were slightly more likely to have had abortion and problems ovulating or menstruating.
One of the reasons for the study, according to Hawks, is to inform physicians about caring for patients who may have experienced a trauma. “Any physical exam can be traumatizing for someone who has encountered physical or sexual violence in the past,” she said. Patients should be able to grant permission before being asked tough questions and physicians should be sensitive in performing genital exams.
While these numbers are tough to read, studies like this one will hopefully prove vital in helping society recognize how pervasive violence against women truly is and inspire more medical professionals and people in general to believe their stories.
Ashley Judd may have begun her career as an actress, but over the years she has become an outspoken public advocate and activist for women’s rights around the world. She was one of the first women to go on the record with her allegations against Harvey Weinstein, has spoken passionately at the Women’s March, and is well-known for her global humanitarian work.
This week, Judd spoke at the Women in the World Summit about another cause close to her heart: abortion rights. The conversation between Judd and moderator Katie Couric turned to Georgia’s controversial “heartbeat bill” which, if passed, would prohibit abortions after a heartbeat is detected which is typically five to six weeks into a woman’s pregnancy. At that point, many women don’t yet realize they’re pregnant.
“As everyone knows, and I’m very open about it, I’m a three-time rape survivor. And one of the times I was raped, there was conception,” Judd said, per People. “And I’m very thankful I was able to access safe and legal abortion. Because the rapist, who is a Kentuckian…has paternity rights in Kentucky and Tennessee. I would’ve had to co-parent with my rapist.” (Judd resides in Tennessee.)
“So having safe access to abortion was personally important to me and, as I said earlier, democracy starts with our skin. We’re not supposed to regulate what we choose to do with our insides,” she continued.
People notes that it is unclear whether the rape that Judd speaks of resulted in a conviction because that could have nullified parental rights for the man, but Judd’s point is clear nonetheless. And it’s yet another chilling reminder of what is at stake for women when it comes to passing anti-choice legislation. There can be lifelong consequences to legislating what women can and cannot do with their own bodies.
Judd, along with other high-profile people in Hollywood like Alyssa Milano and Mandy Moore, have circulated a petition that promises to pull production from the state if the bill is signed into law.
There could be a serious economic impact for the state if Hollywood productions stop filming there though it’s still unclear at this point whether Georgia Governor Brian Kemp will sign the bill into law—in which case it will surely be challenged in the courts. He has until May 12 to make that decision.
When Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed and sworn in to the Supreme Court in October, his seat on the prestigious U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was left vacant. In Novembe, Donald Trump nominated Neomi Rao, who now serves as administrator in the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, an agency within the White House Office of Management and Budget, to fill the seat. “She’s going to be fantastic—great person,” he said at the time.
While it’s no surprise that Trump tapped a nominee whose views are conservative, a new BuzzFeed News report cites pieces that Rao wrote that suggest extreme (and horrific) opinions on women and rape. BuzzFeed discovered a 1994 article from the Yale Herald in which then undergraduate Rao wrote that though a drunk man who raped women should be prosecuted, “a good way to avoid a potential date rape is to stay reasonably sober.” While as many as 50 percent of campus sexual assault cases involve alcohol, Reo, in those writings, put the blame squarely on victims’ shoulders: “And if she drinks to the point where she can no longer choose, well, getting to that point was part of her choice,” she wrote. “Implying that a drunk woman has no control of her actions, but that a drunk man does strips women of all moral responsibility.”
It’s classic victim blaming and while the article is old, it doesn’t do much to calm the fears of those who’ve expressed concern about how Trump nominees might rule when it comes to sexual assault. On social media, the new revelations are sounding warning bells. “What Rao is saying here is that getting drunk means a woman kinda-sorta chose to get raped. Cool defense,” tweeted writer Jill Filipovic.
In a statement to Glamour, End Rape on Campus executive director Jess Davidson said Rao’s comments “are disqualifying for a judicial nominee or anyone interested in holding public office. Her comments condone victim blaming and perpetuate the rape culture in our schools and society that are dangerous to all individuals. Survivors are not ‘responsible’ for the violence they experience, and I am disturbed by Rao’s suggestion otherwise.”
Other writing from Rao uncovered by BuzzFeed News shows equally concerning viewpoints regarding race and LGBTQ+ issues. (In a 1994 column published in the Yale Herald about LGBTQ+ associations on campus, Rao wrote that “[t]rendy political movements have only recently added sexuality to the standard checklist of traits requiring politics.”) Nan Aron, president of the liberal advocacy group Alliance for Justice, told BuzzFeed that Rao’s columns are “consistent with the administration’s support of candidates who make racially insensitive statements and comments hostile to sexual assault survivors.”
“She shouldn’t be awarded a seat on what many view as the second highest court in the country, which is often a stepping stone to the Supreme Court,” Aron said.
The cost of rape may be incalculable—but this wasn’t supposed to be part of it.
New York hospitals illegally billed survivors for hundreds of forensic rape examinations, a new investigation by state Attorney General Barbara Underwood finds.
In a deal first shared with Glamour, seven hospitals have signed a settlement with Underwood’s office to pay back sexual assault survivors who were charged for their rape exams and to set up new policies to keep it from happening again.
“Survivors of sexual assault have already gone through unfathomable trauma; to then subject them to illegal bills and collection calls is unconscionable,” Underwood said in a statement provided to Glamour. “Hospitals have a fundamental responsibility to comply with New York law. My office will continue to do everything in our power to protect survivors and their rights.”
The seven hospitals in the settlement, according to the attorney general: Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center, Columbia University, Montefiore Nyack Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Richmond University Medical Center, and St. Barnabas Hospital.
Settlement documents reviewed by Glamour said the hospitals didn’t admit or deny breaking the law, but that they agreed to repay patients who were improperly billed and also to adopt written policies that make clear survivors are not to receive bills for rape exams.
PHOTO: Tetra Images
“Survivors of sexual assault have already gone through unfathomable trauma; to then subject them to illegal bills and collection calls is unconscionable,” says New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood.
New York law says hospitals that provide services to sexual assault survivors—including forensic exams, commonly called rape kits—are supposed to send bills directly to the state’s Office of Victim Services (unless a patient chooses otherwise).
That system is supposed to protect survivors’ privacy by making it less likely that a relative or employer might learn they sought medical help. The added layer of confidentiality ideally encourages more people to agree to undergo the exams—which means more physical evidence that can help police find attackers.
But the new investigation found that in the case of these hospitals, that process went awry.
Instead, at least 200 forensic rape examinations conducted by the health care providers were billed to patients or their insurance companies. Amounts ranged from approximately $46 to $3,000, an Underwood aide said. The hospitals also repeatedly failed to inform survivors about their billing options, according to the settlements. In some cases, the bills were sent to collection agencies whose job it was to chase down the outstanding balance.
PHOTO: Deborah Jaffe
Forensic rape examinations at seven hospitals got wrongly billed to patients or their insurers, Underwood’s office says.
Last year the New York attorney general’s office settled with Brooklyn Hospital after an investigation that started when a patient came forward to say she had been billed—not once, but seven times—for care associated with a sexual assault case.
Underwood is the first woman to serve as New York attorney general. She took over the state’s top law enforcement job on an interim basis earlier this year after Eric Schneiderman resigned amid a flurry of accusations of abusing women, which he publicly contested. In this year’s midterm elections, New Yorkers elected Letitia James to become the first black woman in state history to fill the role. James will take office in January.
It remains to be seen whether the New York settlement will encourage fresh investigations or changes in hospital and clinic rape-kit billing elsewhere, but the problem is not new, with past controversies reported from Arkansas to Alaska.
For now, Underwood’s office encourages anyone with questions about their New York hospital billing to contact its health care bureau at 800-428-9071.
Celeste Katz is senior political reporter for Glamour. Send news tips, questions, and comments to celeste_katz@condenast.com.
