BANGKOK — A court in Thailand said Wednesday that it has issued an arrest warrant for a co-owner of the Miss Universe Organization in connection with a fraud case.
Jakkaphong “Anne” Jakrajutatip was charged with fraud then released on bail in 2023. She failed to appear as required in a Bangkok court on Tuesday. Since she did not notify the court about her absence, she was deemed to be a flight risk, according to a statement from the Bangkok South District Court.
The court rescheduled the hearing for Dec. 26.
According to the court’s statement, Jakkaphong and her company, JKN Global Group Public Co. Ltd., were sued for allegedly defrauding Raweewat Maschamadol in selling him the company’s corporate bonds in 2023. Raweewat says the investment caused him to lose $930,362.
Financially troubled JKN defaulted on payments to investors beginning in 2023 and began debt rehabilitation procedures with the Central Bankruptcy Court in 2024. The company says it has debts totaling about $93 million.
JKN acquired the rights to the Miss Universe pageant from IMG Worldwide LLC in 2022. In 2023, it sold 50% of its Miss Universe shares to Legacy Holding Group USA, which is owned by a Mexican businessman, Raúl Rocha Cantú.
Jakkaphong resigned from all of the company’s positions in June after being accused by Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission of falsifying the company’s 2023 financial statements. She remains its largest shareholder.
Her whereabouts remain unclear. She did not appear at the 74th Miss Universe competition, which was held in Bangkok earlier this month.
This year’s competition was marred by various problems, including a sharp-tongued scolding by a Thai organizer of Fátima Bosch Fernández of Mexico, who was crowned Miss Universe 2025 on Nov. 19. Two judges reportedly dropped out, with one suggesting that there was an element of rigging to the contest. Separately, Thai police investigated allegations that publicity for the event included illegal promotion of online casinos.
On Monday, JKN denied rumors that Jakkaphong had liquidated the company’s assets and fled the country, but there has been no immediate reaction regarding the arrest warrant. She could not be reached for comment.
Jakkaphong is a well-known celebrity in Thailand who has starred in reality shows and is outspoken about her identity as a transgender woman.
Two more former employees are taking legal action against Motown legend Smokey Robinson and his wife Frances Robinson, adding their allegations of sexual assault against the singer to a $50-million lawsuit filed earlier this year.
The women who sued the spouses in May for sexual assault and failure to pay overtime filed a motion last week in Los Angeles County Superior Court seeking to amend their initial complaint to include new claims from a fifth housekeeper and a man who detailed the couple’s cars. They both alleged separate incidents of Robinson grabbing their hands to touch his erect penis while they were working at his Chatsworth residence.
Robinson’s attorney Christopher Frost dismissed the latest round of allegations in a statement shared with multipleoutlets but did not immediately respond to a Los Angeles Times request for comment Thursday. Frost said the two accusers — identified in court documents as Jane Doe 5 and John Doe 1 — are part of “the same group of people who have conspired together against the Robinsons and are laying out their claims for maximum adverse publicity.”
Frost, who previously dismissed the original May complaint as an “ugly method of trying to extract money from an 85-year-old American icon,” remained firm in those views. “This group of people, who hide behind anonymity, and their attorneys seek global publicity while making the ugliest of false allegations,” Frost told TMZ.
The plaintiffs’ motion outlined the proposed changes for the amended complaint, describing the alleged sexual assault that Jane Doe 5 and John Doe 1 faced during their tenure. Jane Doe 5 is described as a housekeeper who worked for the Robinsons in 2005 until 2011. She took a leave of absence because of a work-related injury but returned around 2007.
According to the motion, Jane Doe 5 says the singer (real name William Robinson Jr.) often called her from the second-floor bathroom and asked him to scrub his back. The Grammy-winning artist would allegedly turn to face her with an erect penis while he was showering before turning again for her to scrub his back. She alleges that on more than 10 occasions, he grabbed her hand in an attempt to force her to touch his erection. She “would strongly resist by forcibly pushing his hands away, and would escape from the bathroom,” the motion said.
Resources for survivors of sexual assault
If you or someone you know is the victim of sexual violence, you can find support using RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline. Call (800) 656-HOPE or visit online.rainn.org to speak with a trained support specialist.
Allegedly, Robinson often walked around the house naked and would rub his elbow against Jane Doe 5’s chest. This prompted her to get a breast reduction in 2015, years after she stopped working for the celebrity spouses. She claims the singer propositioned her for sex numerous times, including after declining to rehire her when he suggested she “accompany him to a nearby hotel.”
Jane Doe 5 also seeks legal action against Frances Robinson, whom she accuses of perpetuating “a hostile work environment.” She alleges Frances blamed her for getting injured while cleaning the home’s chimney and told her to keep working despite it. Jane Doe 5 accused Frances of failing to take “appropriate corrective action” to prevent her husband’s alleged sexual misconduct and echoes previous claims that Frances screamed at employees and “used ethnically pejorative words and language.”
She also repeats previous allegations that the spouses, who married in 2022, failed to pay minimum wage or overtime, echoing claims mentioned in the original lawsuit.
The motion described John Doe 1 as a more recent employee, who was hired in 2013 to detail the couple’s cars and other related services. He was subject to Smokey Robinson’s “sexually harassing conduct” shortly after he began working for the couple, the motion alleged. John Doe 1 said the singer would often appear at his workplace outside the home wearing only underwear and “would then touch and fondle his erect penis” in “plain view.” The artist allegedly made suggestive gestures and remarks, including beckoning John Doe 1 to join him in an “interior room” by his workspace.
Though John Doe 1 rejected the singer’s repeated advances and urged him to “put some clothes on,” in 2022 the musician grabbed his accuser’s hand and attempted to put it on his erection, the motion said. John Doe 1 “immediately withdrew, turned away and left.”
He claims the Robinsons ended his services shortly after the incident, but about a year later, they requested that he return. Smokey Robinson allegedly continued appearing “partially clothed, touching himself” and making sexually suggestive remarks, the motion said. John Doe 1 “experienced humiliation, emotional distress and ongoing fear for his safety and dignity.” He ultimately stopped working for the singer and his wife after learning of similar allegations from former employees.
John Doe 1 is not seeking action on wage-related counts but rather for claims including sexual battery, assault, gender violence, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
A hearing for the motion is set for Jan. 6, and a trial for October 2027.
A state judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by former Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva that alleged the county defamed him, violated his rights and unfairly flagged his personnel file with a “do not rehire” tag.
In a 26-page order, Superior Court Judge Gary D. Roberts on Wednesday granted a request by the county to reject the lawsuit under California’s Anti-SLAPP law, writing that Villanueva’s claims lack “minimal merit.”
The case’s dismissal is “a major victory,” according to Jason Tokoro, an attorney for the county.
“We are pleased that the Court agreed with the County that former Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s claims are barred by California’s anti-SLAPP statute and had no merit,” he wrote in an emailed statement Thursday. “The County can now close this chapter.”
The decision marks the third time a court has dismissed Villanueva’s assertions that the county had treated him unfairly and caused him to suffer “humiliation, severe emotional distress, mental and physical pain and anguish, and compensatory damages.”
The complaint in Villanueva’s lawsuit filed in June said it was an “attempt to clear his name, vindicate his reputation, and be made whole for the emotional distress defendants’ actions have caused him.”
Villanueva previously tried to sue in federal court. In September 2024, a judge in the Central District of California rejected the former sheriff’s $25-million federal lawsuit over the allegations, then did so again in May after Villanueva refiled the case.
Villanueva did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. The Sheriff’s Department declined to comment.
The dispute began after Inspector General Max Hunstman claimed in 2022 that Villanueva engaged in a “racially based attack” by insisting on calling Huntsman by the name he was given at birth, Max-Gustaf. Villanueva also described Huntsman as a Holocaust denier, an allegation for which he did not provide any evidence and which the inspector general has denied.
The county investigated Huntsman’s allegation and slapped the former sheriff with the “do not rehire” label. Each year, a county panel recommends dozens of government employees be disciplined for a wide range of unethical behavior ranging from theft to privacy violations by adding “do not hire” or other restrictions to their personnel files.
In his state lawsuit, Villanueva argued it was unfair for him to be subject to a “do not hire” designation while multiple public officials who had engaged in illegal conduct avoided the tag. Villanueva has maintained that he never discriminated against or harassed anyone.
“The unprecedented decision by the Board to place Villanueva on a ‘Do Not Hire’ was the result of a defamatory charge of discrimination and harassment,” the former sheriff wrote in the June complaint.
Around the same time Huntsman made his allegation, Esther Lim, then-justice deputy for county Supervisor Hilda Solis, made a complaint alleging that Villanueva had a pattern of harassing women of color during livestreams on social media. The allegation also prompted an investigation and a “do not hire” tag, which Villanueva has disputed.
Kevin Spacey is reportedly homeless after facing multiple allegations of sexual harassment and assault.
The “House of Cards” actor told the Telegraph in an interview published Wednesday that he is currently “living in hotels [and] living in Airbnbs” near wherever he can find work because his current financial situation is “not great.”
“I literally have no home, that’s what I’m attempting to explain,” Spacey said.
The actor, who used to live in Baltimore, said he lost his house “because the costs over these last seven years have been astronomical.”
“I’ve had very little coming in and everything going out,” Spacey said. But “[y]ou get through it. In weird ways, I feel I’m back to where I first started, which is I just went where the work was. Everything is in storage, and I hope at some point, if things continue to improve, that I’ll be able to decide where I want to settle down again.”
Spacey swiftly fell from grace in 2017 after actor Anthony Rapp alleged that the two-time Oscar winner had made sexual advances toward him in the 1980s when he was a teenager. Additional accusations of sexual misconduct or assault by more than 30 men followed. Spacey has denied all allegations, and the various lawsuits that stemmed from them ended up being dropped, dismissed, or resulted in his acquittal.
Spacey previously addressed his mounting debt in a 2024 interview with Piers Morgan. After admitting that he was unable to pay the bills that he owed, he said he had considered filing for bankruptcy but had so far “managed to sort of dodge it.” He also revealed that his Baltimore home was facing foreclosure and would be “sold at auction.”
The actor has since attempted to make a comeback. In 2021, he landed his first acting job since the misconduct allegations: an Italian indie movie. He has appeared in other projects, including on stage.
While Spacey has yet to return to Hollywood, he remains hopeful about his future.
“We are in touch with some extremely powerful people who want to put me back to work,” he told the Telegraph. “And that will happen in its right time. But I will also say what I think the industry seems to be waiting for is to be given permission — by someone who is in some position of enormous respect and authority.”
Vin Diesel will not face further litigation in Los Angeles in the sexual battery lawsuit a former assistant filed against the “Fast & Furious” star two years ago.
An L.A. County Superior Court judge on Wednesday dismissed the complaint from Diesel’s accuser, Asta Jonasson, citing a technicality.
Jonasson said in her lawsuit, filed in December 2023, that she served as Diesel’s assistant in 2010 during the filming of “Fast Five” in Atlanta and alleged the actor sexually assaulted her in a hotel room.
Her lawsuit raised 10 claims, including sexual battery, retaliation and multiple violations of California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act. The complaint also sought action against Diesel’s One Race Films production company and its president, Samantha Vincent, Diesel’s sister.
Judge Daniel M. Crowley called Jonasson’s argument “untenable” and in conflict with the intention of the state’s legal code in his dismissal document. Also, since the sexual assault is alleged to have happened in Georgia, the judge said California was not the right jurisdiction in which to file the complaint.
Crowley said that California law could not be “applied to any of Plaintiff’s claims.”
The case was set to go to trial in February prior to Wednesday’s decision. Jonasson’s attorney Matthew T. Hale said in a statement Wednesday that “the Court did not decide anything about the truth of Ms. Jonasson’s allegations.”
“The ruling was based on a legal technicality,” Hale said. “We disagree with the ruling, and we are assessing next steps.”
A legal representative for Diesel did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
In her complaint, Jonasson alleged Diesel groped her, pinned her to a wall and put her hand on his genitals without her consent during the hotel room encounter. The 58-year-old actor, through attorney Bryan Freedman, denied the allegations shortly after Jonasson filed her complaint.
“This is the first he has ever heard about this more than 13-year-old claim made by a purportedly nine-day employee,” Freedman said. “There is clear evidence which completely refutes these outlandish allegations.”
There hasn’t been a “substantiated” allegation of sexual abuse by staff against an inmate in the nation’s largest jail system since 2021.
At first glance, the statistic — based on Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department data — might appear to indicate that a federal law called the Prison Rape Elimination Act has finally accomplished its mission more than two decades after it was enacted by Congress.
But a broad array of local oversight officials and advocacy groups are raising eyebrows over the claim, and bringing new scrutiny to how the Sheriff’s Department investigates allegations of sexual abuse made by inmates against their jailers.
L.A. County incarcerates about 13,000 people — including roughly 1,500 women — throughout its network of jails watched over by sheriff’s deputies.
Sheriff’s Department records show that between January 2022 and September 2025, inmates filed 592 allegations of abuse and harassment against staff. None were deemed “substantiated,” which the Sheriff’s Department defines on its website as “an allegation that was investigated and determined to have occurred.”
The suggestion that there has not been enough evidence to support even one alleged incident by staff against an inmate in nearly four years has struck some tasked with monitoring the Sheriff’s Department as absurd.
“When you have this many complaints and you have zero that are founded, there is something wrong with the process,” said George B. Newhouse, a member of the L.A. Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission.
L.A. County’s Office of Inspector General and advocacy groups, including the Anti-Recidivism Coalition and Peace Over Violence, also shared concerns about the lack of substantiated allegations during a Nov. 4 virtual discussion of the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act, or PREA. The law was enacted in 2003 in an effort to reduce widespread sexual abuse behind bars.
In 2012, the federal government instituted a set of rules known as PREA standards, which laid out steps that jail and prison operators are required to take to prevent and reduce sexual abuse and harassment between inmates and staff.
L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Ryan Vaccaro said the department “has zero tolerance for sexual abuse and sexual harassment.” He added that monthly town hall meetings are held in jails to educate inmates about PREA and record any questions and complaints they have about the federal standards.
“Our team is dedicated to ensuring our residents know we have a zero-tolerance policy and know how to get help when they need it,” he said. “All PREA allegations are documented and processed promptly, thoroughly and objectively.”
During a public meeting last month, Hans Johnson, the chair of the Civilian Oversight Commission, pressed John Barkley, assistant director and PREA coordinator at the Sheriff’s Department, to explain the lack of substantiated reports, and how long it typically takes for allegations to be investigated.
Dozens of the harassment and abuse claims identified in the sheriff’s department records are listed as “pending,” which the department defines on its website as an “allegation still under investigation.”
“It kind of beggars credulity that that number of complaints could be raised and that none could be substantiated,” Johnson said. “It’s just a red flag.”
Barkley said “every case is investigated” and found to be either “substantiated, unsubstantiated or unfounded.” He said “every situation is different. The thing that we’re mandated to do is to do the investigation promptly and to do it thoroughly.”
In a statement a colleague read aloud at the Nov. 4 forum, Portland, Ore., resident Frank Mendoza said that while he was incarcerated at L.A.’s Twin Towers Correctional Facility in 2006, “officers at the jail repeatedly harassed me because I was openly gay” and one beat and raped him in his cell.
“I was then left in the cell naked, bloodied, and completely humiliated,” Mendoza said in his statement. “I tried to report what happened. First, I told the officer on the next shift who found me on the floor of my cell, and all he did was order me to get dressed. That was the norm. Officers didn’t tell on one another.”
Mendoza alleged he wasn’t provided medical treatment or examined for injuries caused by the assault. When he reported the rape, he found that “without a forensic exam, it was impossible to build a criminal case.”
Now, Mendoza gives voice to other people who have been victims of sexual abuse and harassment while incarcerated through his advocacy work as a member of Just Detention International’s Survivor Council.
“It’s clear the county still has a lot of work to do to ensure the safety of people in detention,” he said. “At the same time, the fact that such a hearing is happening is evidence to me of a culture shift and that people are listening.”
The Sheriff’s Department also tracks inmate-on-inmate allegations, which accounted for 296 reports of sexual abuse or harassment between January 2022 and June 2025. Of those, 28 were classified as “substantiated.”
The numbers have spiked since then, with 82 inmate-on-inmate allegations between July and September 2025. Of those claims, the department deemed five involving sexual abuse to be “substantiated,” along with another five claims of sexual harassment.
During that three-month period, inmates made 121 sexual abuse and harassment claims against staff, none of which have been identified as “substantiated” by the Sheriff’s Department.
Arthur Calloway, co-vice-chair of the Civilian Oversight Commission, asked at the October meeting whether the sheriff’s department could be trusted to investigate inmate claims against its own employees.
He added that, “if it was all objective, there would be some substantiated ones actually to trickle out” from claims filed since January 2022.
Barkley responded that “many of those” unsubstantiated outcomes are “dictated on whether the D.A. takes the case.” He added that “if the D.A. decides that they’re not going to prosecute the case with inmate-on-inmate, then it is going to be an unsubstantiated.”
The L.A. County district attorney’s office said in a statement that the Sheriff’s Department first conducts internal investigations of allegations of criminal activity. Then, the department “may present their investigation to our Justice System Integrity Division (JSID) to determine whether criminal charges should be filed,” the statement said.
The Sheriff’s Department can also opt “to discipline their employee administratively in addition to, or in lieu of, seeking criminal charges,” the statement said.
The prosecutor’s office noted that substantiated and unsubstantiated are terms used by the Sheriff’s Department for “administrative purposes,” not legal outcomes.
“JSID reviews all cases presented to them by law enforcement using the standard of whether charges can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt,” the D.A.’s office said.
The Sheriff’s Department said in a statement that sexual abuse cases are investigated internally and that when they are “determined to meet the elements of a crime,” they “are submitted to the District Attorney’s Office.”
The department said that since January 2022, four such cases “resulted in administrative investigations and five were/are being investigated by” the department’s Internal Criminal Investigations Bureau. None of those have been deemed “substantiated.”
“Substantiated allegations, often require cooperation and some sort of evidence, which can make them more challenging,” the Sheriff’s Department said. “However, unsubstantiated allegations are more common because it has a lower threshold.”
Dara Williams, assistant inspector general, said it “would be much better if all complaints were investigated by people who were outside the chain of command.”
Otherwise, she said, when sheriff’s department employees are the ones determining “what triggers an investigation, there is some bias.”
Inspector General Max Huntsman told The Times that he believes the Sheriff’s Department is “not in compliance with PREA in many senses,” such as its internal policies and the physical state of its aging correctional facilities.
At the public meeting last month, Barkley, the PREA coordinator at the Sheriff’s Department, explained that a sergeant must record every sexual abuse and harassment allegation in a dedicated database by the end of the shift when it is received. After that, he said, the allegation is automatically sent to sheriff’s leaders and the inspector general’s office.
At the conclusion of the meeting, Johnson, the chair of the Civilian Oversight Commission, called on the Sheriff’s Department to take steps to ensure it is conducting fair and thorough reviews of all inmate allegations.
“It is unacceptable to have no substantiated cases reported,” he said.
When Donald Trump apologized for saying in 2005 that he could grope women because of his celebrity, he immediately pointed to Bill Clinton as having done worse. Trump appeared before a debate alongside Clinton’s accusers and again mentioned the former president’s past while onstage with Hillary Clinton. But Trump’s argument was undercut when more women publicly came forward with allegations that he had groped or kissed them without consent.
Here’s a look at the pasts of both Trump and Bill Clinton and accusations against them.
Donald Trump
In a screen grab of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” video, Donald Trump prepares for his cameo on “Days of Our Lives” with actress Arianne Zucker and Billy Bush, right, then “Access” co-host. (Getty)
(Getty)
1977, 31-year-old Trump
Trump marries his first wife, Ivana Trump
Donald Trump Jr. is born
Early-1980s, 30-something Donald Trump
Allegation: While Trump was seated next to her on a plane, businesswoman Jessica Leeds said, he lifted her armrest and touched her inappropriately.
“He was like an octopus,” Leeds, now 74, told the New York Times. “His hands were everywhere.”
Response: Trump called it a “ridiculous tale.” At a rally in North Carolina, he said, “She would not be my first choice.”
Allegation: Ivana Trump used the word “rape” in a 1992 deposition during their divorce to describe an encounter with Trump when they were married in 1989. In 2015, after the allegation resurfaced, she said it was “without merit” and that she had made it “at a time of very high tension during my divorce from Donald.”
Response: After the allegation resurfaced last summer, Michael Cohen, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, incorrectly said that a man cannot legally rape his wife. Many states have laws outlawing marital rape. Trump distanced himself from that statement.
Early 1990s, 40-something Trump
Allegation: Kristin Anderson told the Washington Post that when she was at a Manhattan nightclub, someone sitting next to her “touched her vagina through her underwear.” Anderson said she fled the couch and only then realized it was Trump.
Response: “Mr. Trump strongly denies this phony allegation by someone looking to get some free publicity. It is totally ridiculous,” Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said to the Post.
1991, 44-year-old Trump
Ivana Trump files for divorce.
1992, 45-year-old Trump
Accusation: Donald Trump reportedly talked about dating young girls once they reached maturity. A 1992 wire service report said he joked to 14-year-old girls that he’d be dating them “in a few years.” In CBS footage from around the same time, he says of a 10-year-old girl that he’d be “dating her in 10 years.”
Response: Trump has not commented specifically on those allegations.
Accusation: Jill Harth filed a sexual assault lawsuit against Trump, alleging that while working on a beauty competition with him, he harassed her to the point of what she called “attempted rape.”
“He pushed me up against the wall, and had his hands all over me and tried to get up my dress again,” she told the Guardian. “And I had to physically say: ‘What are you doing? Stop it.’”
Response: In an interview with CNN on Friday, Trump said he was the victim of a political smear campaign.
1993, 46-year-old Trump
Tiffany Trump is born.
Trump marries Marla Maples.
1997, 50-year-old Trump
Trump and Marla Maples separate.
Accusation: Temple Taggart told the New York Times that when she was Miss Utah, Trump kissed her on the lips without consent.
Response: Trump has denied the allegations.
1998, 51-year-old Trump
Accusation: During a press conference with Gloria Allred on Thursday, Karena Virginia said Trump approached her after the 1998 U.S. Open tennis tournament in Flushing, N.Y. He then grabbed her arm and touched her breast.
“Don’t you know who I am?” Virginia said Trump asked her when she flinched.
Response: “Gloria Allred, in another coordinated, publicity seeking attack with the Clinton campaign, will stop at nothing to smear Mr. Trump,” Trump spokeswoman Jessica Ditto said. “Give me a break. Voters are tired of these circus-like antics and reject these fictional stories and the clear efforts to benefit Hillary Clinton.”
1999, 52-year-old Trump
Trump and Marla Maples divorce
2003, 56-year-old Trump
Accusation:Mindy McGillivray says Trump groped her at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida while she was working with a photographer at the site. She was 23.
Response: Trump has denied the allegations.
2005, 58-year-old Trump
Trump marries Melania Trump
Allegation: Trump makes lewd comments about groping women.
Response: Apologized, calling it “locker room talk,” while dismissing it as a distraction.
Accusation: Rachel Crooks says Trump kissed her without permission outside an elevator bank at Trump Tower in Manhattan when she was 22.
Response: Trump denied the allegations. When questioned by a New York Times reporter, he told the journalist, “You are a disgusting human being.”
2006, 59-year-old Trump
Barron Trump is born.
Allegation: During a Saturday press conference with Gloria Allred, adult film star Jessica Drake said she met Trump in 2006 at a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe where she said he made sexual advances toward her and two friends.
“When we entered the room he grabbed each of us tightly in a hug and kissed each one of us without asking permission,” Drake said, releasing a posed photo she took with Trump at the event.
Drake said that later, Trump or a “male speaking on his behalf” offered her $10,000 and use of his private jet for sex. She said she declined.
Response: “This story is totally false and ridiculous. The picture is one of thousands taken out of respect for people asking to have their picture taken with Mr. Trump,” Trump’s campaign said in a statement. “Mr. Trump does not know this person, does not remember this person and would have no interest in ever knowing her.”
2007, 60-year-old Trump
Accusation: Former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos says Trump invited her into his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel and proceeded to kiss her against her will, groped her and shoved his genitals towards her.
Response: “To be clear, I never met her at a hotel or greeted her inappropriately a decade ago. That is not who I am as a person, and it is not how I’ve conducted my life,” Trump said in a statement.
Bill Clinton
President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.
(Getty Images)
1975, 29-year-old Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton marries Hillary Rodham.
Mid-1970s to 1992, 30- to 40-something Clinton
Allegation:Dolly Kyle Browning, a high school friend of Clinton’s, said she had an occasional sexual relationship with him over about 15 years.
Response: Clinton has not publicly responded.
1978, 32-year-old Clinton
Allegation:Juanita Broaddrick said in 1999 that when Clinton was Arkansas governor, he invited her to a hotel room where she said he kissed, then raped her.
Response: Clinton denied the allegations.
1980, 34-year-old Clinton
Chelsea Clinton is born.
1982, 36-year-old Clinton
Allegation: In 1998, Elizabeth Ward Gracen said she had had a consensual one-night stand with Clinton when he was Arkansas governor in 1982. It was the same year she won the title of Miss America.
Response: Clinton denied the allegations.
1983, 37-year-old Clinton
Allegation: In 1994, 1958’s Miss Arkansas, Sally Perdue, said she had an affair with Clinton the previous year. She claimed that a Democratic staffer told her not to reveal any information, and was warned “they knew that I went jogging by myself and he couldn’t guarantee what would happen to my pretty little legs.”
Response: He has not publicly responded to the allegation.
1991, 44-year-old Clinton
Allegation: Paula Jones said a state trooper asked her to meet then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton in his hotel room. Jones said that Clinton dropped his pants and underwear and told her to “kiss it.” She refused.
Jones sued Clinton for sexual harassment in 1998, prompting the investigation that culminated in the revelation of Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Response: Clinton settled a sexual harassment suit with Jones with no apology or admission of guilt.
1980-1992, 45-year-old Clinton
Allegation: During Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992, Gennifer Flowers said she had had a 12-year sexual relationship with him.
Response: Clinton admitted to a sexual affair with Flowers while under oath in 1998.
1993, 46-year-old Bill Clinton
Allegation: In 1998, Kathleen Willey alleged Clinton groped her without permission in the Oval Office.
Response: Clinton denied the encounter while under oath in 1998.
1995-1996, 49-year-old Bill Clinton
Allegation:Monica Lewinsky’s affair with Bill Clinton surfaced in 1998, when Lewinsky’s friend Linda Tripp learned that she had signed an affidavit in the Paula Jones case denying her relationship with Clinton. Tripp handed secret recordings of Lewinsky’s account of the affair to investigator Kenneth Starr.
Response: Clinton initially denied the allegations.
“I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” he said famously.
Clinton later admitted to the affair, and the House of Representatives voted to impeach him.
Updated at 11:10 a.m. on Oct. 24, 2016: This story was updated with Jessica Drake’s statements.
Updated at 1:20 p.m. on Oct. 20, 2016: This story was updated with Karena Virginia’s statements.
This article was originally published at 3:35 p.m. on Oct. 19, 2016.
WASHINGTON — For more than a year, detainees at a California immigrant detention center said, they were summoned from their dorms to a lieutenant’s office late at night. Hours frequently passed, they said, before they were sent back to their dorms.
What they allege happened in the office became the subject of federal complaints, which accuse Lt. Quin, then an administrative manager, of harassing, threatening and coercing immigrants into sexual acts at the Golden State Annex in McFarland. A person with that nameworked in a higher-ranking post, as chief of security, at the Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana until August — the same month The Times sent questions to the company that operates the facilities.
The Department of Homeland Security said it could not substantiate the allegations. According to an attorney for one of the detainees, the California Attorney General’s office opened an investigation into the matter.
Immigrant advocates point to the case as one of many allegations of abuse in U.S. immigration facilities, within a system which they say fails to properly investigate.
In three complaints reviewed by The Times that were filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), to a watchdog agency and with DHS, detainees accused Quin of sexual assault, harassment and other misconduct. The complainants initially knew the lieutenant only as “Lt. Quinn,” and he is referred to as such in the federal complaints, though the correct spelling is “Quin.”
The complaints also allege other facility staff knew about and facilitated abuse, perpetuating a culture of impunity.
The Golden State Annex, a U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement detention facility, in McFarland last year.
The California and Louisiana facilities are both operated by the Florida-based private prison giant, the GEO Group.
A Dec. 10, 2024, post on Instagram Threads appears to allude to issues Quin faced in California. The post pictures him standing in front of a GEO Group flag and states: “Permit me to reintroduce myself … You will respect my authority. They tried to hinder me, but God intervened.”
Asked about the accusations, Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant Homeland Security public affairs secretary, said in a statement that allegations of misconduct by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees or contractors are treated seriously and investigated thoroughly.
“These complaints were filed in 2024 — well before current DHS leadership and the necessary reforms they implemented,” McLaughlin wrote. “The investigation into this matter has concluded, and ICE — through its own investigation reviewed by [the DHS office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties] — could not substantiate any complaint of sexual assault or rape.”
The GEO Group did not respond to requests for comment.
Advocates for the detainees say they are undeterred and will continue to seek justice for people they say have been wronged.
Advocates also say the potential for abuse at detention facilities will grow as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown brings such facilities to record population levels. The population of detained immigrants surpassed a high of 61,000 in August, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan research organization.
The allegations against Quin by a 28-year-old detainee are detailed in his FTCA complaint, a precursor to a lawsuit, filed in January with DHS. The complaint seeks $10 million for physical and emotional damages.
The Times generally does not identify alleged victims of sexual abuse and is referring to him by his middle initial, E.
McLaughlin’s response did not address the FTCA complaint that details E’s sexual assault allegations.
Reached by phone, Quin told The Times, “I don’t speak with the media,” and referred a reporter to the Golden State Annex. After being read the allegations against him and asked to respond, he hung up.
E alleged abuse in interviews with The Times, and in a recorded interview with an attorney, which formed the basis for the FTCA complaint.
In the complaint, he said that beginning in May 2023, Quin would call him into a room, where no cameras or staff were present, to say he had been given a citation or that guards had complained about him.
One day, the complaint alleges, Quin rubbed his own genitals over his pants and began making sexual comments. E told Quin he felt uncomfortable and wanted to go back to his dorm. But Quin smirked, dragged his chair closer and grabbed E in the crotch, the complaint says.
After E pushed Quin away and threatened to defend himself physically, the complaint alleges, Quin made his own threat: to call a “code black” — an emergency — that would summon guards and leave E facing charges of assaulting a federal officer.
Instead, E said, Quin called for an escort to take him back to his dorm.
After that, the late-night summons — sometimes at midnight or 2 a.m. — increased, E said in his complaint. Each time, Quin continued to rub his genitals over his clothes, according to the complaint.
The complaint alleges Quin repeatedly offered to help with E’s immigration case in exchange for sexual favors. Then Quin found out E is bisexual and E alleged Quin threatened to tell his family during a visit. Afraid of his family finding out about his sexuality, E said in the complaint, he finally acquiesced to letting Quin touch his genitals and perform oral sex on him.
“I just, I ended up doing it,” E said in a recorded interview with his attorney.
Afterward, the complaint says, Quin told E that he would make sure to help him, and that no one would find out.
The complaint alleges that Quin brought E contraband gifts, including a phone, and, around Christmas, a water bottle full of alcohol.
“I feel dirty,” E said in the recorded interview. “I feel ashamed of myself, you know? I feel like my dignity was just nowhere.”
E said in his complaint that a staff member told him in December 2023 that a guard had reported Quin to the warden after noticing E had been out of his dorm for a long time; the guard had reviewed security cameras showing Quin giving E the bottle of alcohol.
E said the staffer told him that Quin was temporarily suspended from interacting with detainees, and the late-night summons stopped for a while.
Lee Ann Felder-Heim, staff attorney with the Asian Law Caucus, which filed a complaint with the federal government alleging mistreatment of detainees at the Golden State Annex in McFarland.
(Maria del Rio / For The Times)
A second, earlier complaint alleging mistreatment at the McFarland facility was filed on E’s behalf in August 2024 by the Asian Law Caucus with the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL).
That complaint alleges that other GEO Group staff targeted him with sexually harassing and degrading comments. It does not address E’s sexual assault allegations, because E said he was initially too afraid to talk about them.
Once, when E was lying on his stomach in his cell, a guard commented loudly to other staff that he was waiting for a visit from Quin; the guard made a motion of putting her finger through a hole, insinuating that E sought to engage in sexual intercourse, the complaint states.
The broader issue isn’t one person, “but rather a system of impunity and abuse,” said Lee Ann Felder-Heim, a staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus. “The reports make it clear that other staff were aware of what was going on and actually were assisting in making it happen.”
In addition to detailing E’s own experiences, the complaint also details abuse and harassment of five other detainees. One detainee is transgender, a fact that would play a role in how federal officials investigated the complaint.
In February and March, CRCL sent Felder-Heim letters saying it had closed the investigation into the alleged sexual abuse and harassment, citing, as justification, Trump’s First-Day executive order concerning “gender ideology extremism.” The order prohibits using federal funds to “promote gender ideology,” so Felder-Heim said it appears the investigation was shut down because one of the complainants is transgender.
She called the investigation process flawed and “wholly inadequate.”
E filed a third complaint with another oversight body, the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. To his knowledge, no investigation was initiated.
In March, the Trump administration shut down three internal oversight bodies: CRCL, OIDO and the Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) Ombudsman. Civil rights groups sued the following month, prompting the agency to resurrect the offices.
But staffing at the offices was decimated, according to sworn court declarations by DHS officials. CRCL has gone from having 147 positions to 22; OIDO from about 118 to about 10; and the CIS Ombudsman from 46 to about 10.
“All legally required functions of CRCL continue to be performed, but in an efficient and cost-effective manner and without hindering the Department’s mission of securing the homeland,” said McLaughlin, the DHS spokeswoman.
Michelle Brané, who was the immigrant detention ombudsman under the Biden administration, said the civil rights office generally had first dibs on complaints about sexual assault. She recalled the complaint about Quin but said her office didn’t investigate it because the civil rights office already was.
Brané said the decrease in oversight amid increased detention will inevitably exacerbate issues such as allegations of sexual assault. Worse conditions also make it harder to hire quality staff, she said.
Around the same time that E was held at Golden State Annex, a gay couple from Colombia reported in April 2024 to the OIDO that Quin had sexually harassed them.
D.T., 26, and C.B., 25, were separated upon arrival at Golden State Annex. D.T. began to experience severe anxiety attacks, they said in the Asian Law Caucus complaint and in an interview with The Times. The couple asked to be placed in the same dormitory.
Before granting their request, Quin asked what they would give him in return, the couple recounted in the complaint. Afterward, the complaint alleges, he frequently invited them to his office, saying they owed him.
“We never accepted going to his office, because we knew what it was for,” C.B. told the Times.
In their complaint, they allege that Quin asked D.T. if he wanted to have sex and told C.B., “You belong to me.”
The couple became aware that Quin had also harassed other detainees and gave preferential treatment to those who they believed accepted his requests for sexual favors, according to the complaint; one detainee told them that he had grabbed Quin’s hand and placed it on his penis to avoid being taken to solitary confinement for starting a fight.
D.T. said in an interview with The Times that he believes “below him are many people who never said anything.”
In a Dec. 2, 2024, internal facility grievance from Golden State Annex reviewed by The Times, another detainee alleges that Quin retaliated against him for speaking out against misconduct.
In the grievance and in an interview with The Times, the detainee said he spoke up after, on several occasions, watching another man walk to Quin’s office late at night and come back to the dorm hours later. He also said in the grievance that Quin brought in marijuana, cellphones and other contraband.
Another witness, Gustavo Flores, 33, said Quin recognized him as a former Golden State Annex detainee when he was briefly transferred to the Alexandria facility, just before his deportation to El Salvador in May.
Quin pulled Flores aside and offered to uncuff him and get him lunch in exchange for cleaning the lobby; after he finished, Quin brought him into his office, where he peppered Flores with questions about Golden State Annex, Flores said.
Flores said he asked about certain staffers and detainees. He told Flores people wanted to sue him, calling them “crybabies.”
“He’s telling me everything, like, ‘Oh yeah, I know what goes on over there,’” Flores said.
When E tried to end the sexual encounters, his complaint says, Quin threatened to have him sent to a detention facility in Texas or have his deportation expedited.
In October 2024, E was transferred to the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield.
Heliodoro Moreno, E’s attorney, said the California Attorney General’s Office confirmed to him in February that it was investigating. An investigator interviewed E in April and again in May, he said, and the investigation remains open.
California Department of Justice spokesperson Nina Sheridan declined to comment on a potential investigation. But in a statement she said the office remains vigilant of “ongoing, troubling conditions” at detention facilities throughout California.
“We are especially concerned that conditions at these facilities are only set to worsen as the Trump Administration continues to ramp up its inhumane campaign of mass deportation,” she wrote.
E, who had a pending claim for a special status known as withholding of removal, dropped his case in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Moreno said his client wished to no longer be detained.
“It’s very unfortunate that he’s in these circumstances,” Moreno said. His client was forced to forgo his appellate rights and leave “without really getting a conclusion to receiving justice for what happened to him.”
The Los Angeles Police Department took more than a year to begin fully disclosing domestic abuse allegations against officers after the state passed a law that mandates reporting and can trigger permanent bans from police work in California.
The revelation came out through testimony at an administrative hearing last month for a rookie LAPD officer who was fired after the department alleged she committed time card fraud and physically assaulted her former romantic partner, a fellow cop.
A sergeant from the LAPD’s serious misconduct unit testified in a proceeding against Tawny Ramirez, according to Ramirez’s attorney and evidence from the closed-door hearing reviewed by The Times. The sergeant said the department did not start reporting certain spousal abuse cases to the state until after Ramirez was terminated in early February 2024. That is more than a year after rules took effect requiring the LAPD and other police agencies to promptly report officers accused of “serious misconduct” to the state’s police accreditation body, which grants authorization to work in law enforcement.
Senate Bill 2, passed in 2021, made domestic violence one of the nine categories of “serious misconduct” — including excessive force, dishonesty, sexual assault and acts of bias on the basis of factors including race, sexual orientation and gender — that police agencies are obligated to report to the state’s Commission on Police Officer Standards and Training, or POST.
The LAPD sergeant testified that the reporting practices were based on guidance from POST’s former compliance director, who said at a training session that agencies did not have to “report first-time misdemeanor domestic violence,” according to Ramirez’s attorney Nicole Castronovo and the hearing evidence reviewed by The Times.
Ramirez appealed the basis for her firing and has maintained she did not commit any misconduct. She denied allegations she abused her former partner.
LAPD officials believed the partial POST reporting went “against best practices” and tried to get the directive in writing, the sergeant testified, but still went along with what the official advised, according to Castronovo and the hearing evidence.
When the department sought further clarification from the POST compliance director’s successor, officials were informed that nearly all domestic-related incidents must be reported, Castronovo said.
She said she tried to press the LAPD about how many of these cases may have gone unreported, but the department said it didn’t know.
When SB 2 took effect in January 2023, police agencies were supposed to start disclosing “serious misconduct” to POST within 10 days of learning of credible allegations.
The sergeant who testified declined comment and directed questions to the department’s press office, which in a statement said that at the time SB 2 was being rolled out the LAPD “consulted” with POST “to determine which misconduct types required reporting.”
“The Department was advised that first-time, non-aggravated domestic battery did not meet the reporting threshold,” the statement read. “The Department followed this guidance, reporting only those cases with aggravating factors. In 2024, the Department adopted a new standard of reporting all allegations of domestic battery, regardless of severity.”
Ramirez’s lawyer said the testimony raises questions about the LAPD’s compliance with the law — and whether it has gone back to report other officers’ past offenses.
“It’s very scary to think that that crime wouldn’t be reported,” Castronovo said.
The LAPD accused Ramirez of assaulting her ex, Jorge Alvarado, in May 2023 based on a texted photo he provided that showed yellowish bruising on his arm from where she had squeezed it, according to the hearing evidence. Ramirez maintains Alvarado was bruised during consensual sex and argued at her at an administrative hearing that the department was unwilling to consider emails, text messages and other evidence she tried to provide that cast doubt on her accuser’s account.
The couple started dating in 2022 while both were at the Police Academy, according to Ramirez. She claims she tried to end the relationship after a few months when Alvarado turned overbearing and possessive. A colleague from Topanga Division helped her fill out an application for a temporary restraining order, Ramirez said.
A judge denied the stay away order on the grounds that Ramirez wasn’t in imminent danger, and Alvarado did not face any charges.
Alvarado did not respond to a request for comment sent to his department email.
According to hearing evidence, Alvarado first disclosed the alleged abuse by Ramirez during an interview with LAPD Internal Affairs in January 2024. Ramirez was fired less than a month later — weeks shy of completing her 18-month probationary period — after the department alleged that she lied about her reason for taking time off from work.
Meagan Poulos, a spokesperson for POST, said she wasn’t familiar with Ramirez’s case but if anything, the state agency deals with police departments “over-reporting” misconduct. Poulos said data on serious misconduct reports from the LAPD were not immediately available for review.
She added that reporting is not mandatory for spousal abuse cases that are quickly deemed unfounded or that don’t prompt an Internal Affairs investigation, and suggested LAPD officials may have “misconstrued” that to mean they didn’t have to report any such cases.
“I don’t know if that’s the case in this particular case, but I can say that’s not something that POST would advise any agency to not do,” she said.
According to Poulos and data from the agency, in 2023 there were 250-plus law enforcement agencies — the vast majority of which have fewer than 50 officers — that didn’t report a single case of serious misconduct. She said the agency regularly sends out reminders about their obligations under SB 2.
Larger agencies like the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have their own coordinators or standalone units charged with referring qualifying cases to state authorities for consideration. In a brief statement, the Sheriff’s Department said it has been its “practice since the inception of SB 2 to report all allegations of acts that violate the law.”
POST revoked 57 officers’ certification this year, compared to 84 last year. Another 43 officers voluntarily surrendered their certifications, while 77 had theirs at least temporarily suspended.
A POST notification doesn’t automatically result in an officer losing his or her policing certificate. Cases are reviewed by a disciplinary board comprised of civilians with a professional or personal background related to police accountability. That board convenes every few months to review POST’s investigation of misconduct allegations and recommend whether the commission should seek decertification.
Ramirez told The Times the LAPD initially said domestic violence had nothing to do with her firing. She says she was unfairly accused of violating department policy during a 2023 incident in Canoga Park in which she and another officer used force while trying to take a man into custody. It was only later that the photos of Alvarado’s bruises were used against her, Ramirez said, along with an allegation of time card fraud — which she also denies.
The LAPD said Ramirez lied and told her supervisor she needed time off to take care her of her ailing brother when she actually went to apply for a job at the Beverly Hills Police Department.
Ramirez said she was a caregiver for her brother — who has since died — and that she was applying to the Beverly Hills job in an attempt to get away from Alvarado.
Alvarado was placed on administrative leave after Ramirez reported him but has since completed his probationary period and been elevated to the rank of Police Officer II.
A decision from the LAPD disciplinary review process on whether Ramirez can be fired remains pending. She thinks it’s unfair her ex has been allowed to return to work while she’s stuck in limbo.
“Here I am still trying to get my job back and he’s a happy officer, enjoying his benefits, while I’m living this nightmare,” she said.
Times staff writer Connor Sheets and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
CHICAGO — A judge heard testimony Tuesday about overflowing toilets, crowded cells, no beds and water that “tasted like sewer” at a Chicago-area building that serves as a key detention spot for people rounded up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Three people who were held at the building in Broadview, just outside Chicago, offered rare public accounts about the conditions there as U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman considers ordering changes at a site that has become a flashpoint for protests and confrontations with federal agents.
“I don’t want anyone else to live what I lived through,” said Felipe Agustin Zamacona, 47, an Amazon driver and Mexican immigrant who has lived in the U.S. for decades.
Zamacona said there were 150 people in a holding cell. Desperate to lie down to sleep, he said he once took the spot of another man who got up to use the toilet.
And the water? Zamacona said he tried to drink from a sink but it “tasted like sewer.”
A lawsuit filed last week accuses the government of denying proper access to food, water and medical care, and coercing people to sign documents they don’t understand. Without that knowledge, and without private communication with lawyers, they have unknowingly relinquished their rights and faced deportation, the lawsuit alleges.
“This is not an issue of not getting a toilet or a Fiji water bottle,” attorney Alexa Van Brunt of the MacArthur Justice Center told the judge. “These are a set of dire conditions that when taken together paint a harrowing picture.”
Before testimony began, U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman said the allegations were “disgusting.”
“To have to sleep on a floor next to an overflowing toilet — that’s obviously unconstitutional,” he said.
Attorney Jana Brady of the Justice Department acknowledged there are no beds at the Broadview building, just outside Chicago, because it was not intended to be a long-term detention site.
Authorities have “improved the operations” over the past few months, she said, adding there has been a “learning curve.”
“The conditions are not sufficiently serious,” Brady told the judge.
The building has been managed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for decades. But amid the Chicago-area crackdown, it has been used to process people for detention or deportation.
Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol commander who has led the Chicago immigration operation, said criticism was unfounded.
“I think they’re doing a great job out there,” he told the Associated Press during an interview this week.
Testifying with the help of a translator, Pablo Moreno Gonzalez, 56, said he was arrested last week while waiting to start work. Like Zamacona, he said he was placed in a cell with 150 other people, with no beds, blankets, toothbrush or toothpaste.
“It was just really bad. … It was just too much,” Moreno Gonzalez, crying, told the judge.
A third person, Claudia Carolina Pereira Guevara, testified from Honduras, separated from two children who remain in the U.S. She said she was held at Broadview for five days in October and recalled using a garbage bag to clear a clogged toilet.
“They gave us nothing that had to do with cleaning. Absolutely nothing,” Guevara said.
For months advocates have raised concerns about conditions at Broadview, which has drawn scrutiny from members of Congress, political candidates and activist groups. Lawyers and relatives of people held there have called it a de facto detention center, saying up to 200 people have been held at a time without access to legal counsel.
The Broadview center has also drawn demonstrations, leading to the arrests of numerous protesters. The demonstrations are at the center of a separate lawsuit from a coalition of news outlets and protesters who claim federal agents violated their First Amendment rights by repeatedly using tear gas and other weapons on them.
Fernando writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Sophia Tareen in Chicago and Ed White in Detroit contributed to this report.
