MEGA-THREAD: High-profile controversies, or accused in CP/CSA/AMSC investigations

[Artaxerxes II]

https://news.sky.com/story/cheer-star-j ... n-12647264:

Prosecutors had called for a lengthy status, arguing Harris' status as a popular celebrity enabled him to "persuade and entice" his young victims to engage in sexual conduct.

Jerry Harris, star of Netflix TV series Cheer, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison in the US for crimes relating to indecent images of children and soliciting sex from minors.
The 22-year-old previously pleaded guilty to one count of travelling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and one count of receiving indecent images.

Prosecutors at the Chicago hearing had called for a lengthy jail term, arguing Harris' status as a popular celebrity enabled him to "persuade and entice" his young victims to engage in sexual conduct.
Harris, has been in custody at a federal detention facility since his arrest in September 2020.
In February this year, he pleaded guilty to two of seven counts against him, including persuading a 17-year-old to send him sexually explicit photographs for money and travelling to Florida for the purpose of "engaging in illicit sexual conduct" with a 15-year-old.

According to the indictment, Harris allegedly solicited sex from minors at cheerleading competitions and convinced teenage boys to send him obscene photographs and videos of themselves.
Harris later admitted to FBI agents to asking a teenage boy to send him photos of himself and to requesting indecent images on Snapchat from at least 10 to 15 others he knew to be minors.

Harris, from the Chicago suburb of Naperville, was a breakout star of Cheer, a reality TV series which tracked a competitive cheerleading squad from Navarro College in Texas as they aim to win a national title.

Other members of the show had acted as character witnesses for Harris, including Navarro college head coach Monica Aldama, teammate Morgan Simianer, and the parents of Harris' fellow cheerleader, Gabi Butler.

The second series of Cheer addresses the investigation into Harris, and dedicates an entire episode to the incidents, titled "Jerry".

[Artaxerxes II]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... women.html:

A Sex Education star has appeared in court accused of sexual offences against children, including 'forcing youngsters to read Shakespeare naked in acting classes'.
Alexander Westwood, 24, who starred in 17 episodes of the hit Netflix show is on trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court.
He has been charged with 26 different offences against two children, a boy and a girl, who he gave acting lessons to.
Westwood's alleged crimes, which include rape, stretch back to before he was 10 years old and includes 10 charges of sexual abuse of a girl over a seven-year period.
The actor denies the charges against him.

During a hearing on Monday, the court heard Westwood had been giving acting lessons to budding actresses, where he would allegedly force them to recite Shakespeare naked before taking part in nude role play scenes.

Westwood faces 26 offences in all, including four counts of rape of a woman over 16.
Other charges include, three counts of causing a female 13 or over to engage in a non-penetrative sexual activity, one count of inciting a boy under 13 to engage in sexual activity, seven counts of sexual assault on a female, three counts of causing a child under 13 to watch a sexual act, three counts of assaulting a girl under 13 by touching, two counts of inciting a girl under 13 to engage in sexual activity involving penetration and three counts of assaulting a female 13 and over by penetration.
Westwood, of Albrighton, denies the charges against him.

The trial against the actor is expected to last around a month.

Westwood appeared in 17 episodes of the raunchy Netflix comedy as an 'unaccredited student', according to his IMDb profile.
As well as starring in Sex Education, the actor also appeared in 2018 action film, Outlawed.

[RoosterDance]

Westwood's alleged crimes, which include rape, stretch back to before he was 10 years old

I feel like more information is required about this whole case, but what the hell is this right here?

[terminally_unique]

The disparity in punishment between the United States and other countries for sex crimes is truly astounding.

[Artaxerxes II]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/co ... r-AA1uwpQj:

Cormac McCarthy reportedly had a 16-year-old muse who inspired several of his novels.
The late author, regarded as one of the greatest American novelists, began a relationship with the teenager in the 1970s when he was 42, Vanity Fair reported.
Augusta Britt told the magazine that she approached McCarthy at a motel in Arizona after recognising him as the author of a book she was reading.

“He was so shocked. He said he was surprised that anyone had read that book, let alone a 16-year-old girl,” she said. “But he said he would be delighted to sign it.”
McCarthy, the author of The Road and No Country for Old Men, first had sex with her when she was 17 and he was 43.
At the time, he was married to the singer Annie DeLisle.
The pair fled to Mexico after McCarthy altered her birth certificate on a typewriter – later inspiring 1985 novel Blood Meridian, in which a teenager flees from her home across the US border.
McCarthy reportedly feared he would be charged with statutory rape for taking a teenager across state lines.
Ms Britt owned a toy kitten named John Grady Cole, a name McCarthy would go on to use for his protagonist in All the Pretty Horses, published in 1992. The title of the novel is said to have come from a lullaby that the teenager would sing to the stuffed creature before bed.

Vanity Fair reported that she is represented in 10 of McCarthy’s books, sometimes in the form of several characters at once, as well as on the covers of The Passenger and Stella Maris.
Ms Britt said McCarthy proposed to her twice, but they never got engaged and split in 1981. The pair, however, kept in contact, and he is said to have come back to visit her every few months for the rest of his life. He died in 2023.
“It feels like I’m being disloyal to Cormac,” Ms Britt said. “But he would always warn me that at some point his archives would open up and people would find out about me.”

[Artaxerxes II]

Related:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -muse.html:

Vanity Fair under fire for 'glorifying' Cormac McCarthy's sexual relationship with underage 'muse'

Vanity Fair is under fire for 'glorifying' and 'romanticizing' author Cormac McCarthy's sexual relationship with his underage 'muse'.
The American novelist's secret underage muse was revealed in a piece yesterday more than a year after his death from prostate cancer.
But readers have taken issue with writer Vincenzo Barney's choice of language.
The article centers around Augusta Britt, now 64, who recounts her relationship with McCarthy and their first meeting at a hotel pool in Tucson, Arizona, when she was a troubled foster child, 16, and McCarthy was 42.
'Just imagine for a moment...you're sitting by a pool at a cheap motel when a beautiful 16-year-old runaway sidles up to you with a stolen gun in one hand and your debut novel in the other,' Barney wrote.
At the time, Britt explained how she had no intention of starting a relationship with him but described how their relationship developed and how he she believes he 'saved her life.'
The magazine describes their first sexual encounter - when she was 17.
While Barney acknowledges the age gap, he called it 'possibly illegal'.

'He was 43, she was 17. The image is startling, possibly illegal.
'At the very least, it raises questions about inappropriate power dynamics and the specter of premeditated grooming.
'But not to Britt—who had suffered unspeakable violence at the hands of many men in her young life—then or now,' he writes.
Readers were furious with his characterization of a 'groomer'.
'Genuinely stunned this got published.
'The writer is positively drooling over the thought of an exploited, abused 16-year-old girl. He celebrates Cormac McCarthy's pedophilia (he was 42!) as "the craziest love story." What is going on here?' said one reader.
The Telegraph also gave a scathing review.

'Perhaps more troubling than the mangled prose, Barney seems to treat McCarthy’s paedophilic interest in the vulnerable teenager as a great love story.
'It is a scarcely unbelievable stance to take in 2024, seven years after the #MeToo scandal first broke and seven decades following the publication of Lolita,' said its critic.
Barney acknowledges in the article that McCarthy was at one point the subject of an FBI search after running away with Britt.
Vanity Fair and the article's author, Vincenzo Barney, were contacted for comment but have not yet responded as of the time of publication.
Britt describes how the relationship came to be.
'It wasn't very safe in the foster homes,' Britt, now 64, explained.
'They weren't allowed to have locks on bedroom or bathroom doors, so the men would just follow me into the rooms.
'But at the Desert Inn, I could use the showers by the pool to shower.'
It was there, she said, that she first saw McCarthy.
'I thought he looked familiar, but couldn't quite place him,' Britt recounted.
She spent months with Barney in Arizona, remembering her relationship with the literary legend.

[Artaxerxes II]

This is the 'controversial' Vanity Fair article for those of you wondering what's going on: https://archive.ph/5Xqm5

Original article: https://www.vanityfair.com/style/story/ ... -exclusive

[BLueRibbon]

The disparity in punishment between the United States and other countries for sex crimes is truly astounding.

Countries like Japan and Korea don't really hunt MAPs like others do. You'd still risk going to prison for consensual AMSC though.

[Artaxerxes II]

https://www.koreaboo.com/news/squid-gam ... -offender/:

On November 1, the show released a new teaser for its upcoming season, unveiling some old and some new characters. The last season’s winner, Gi Hun (played by Lee Jung Jae), is seen trying to navigate the rest of the participants through the chaotic and lethal games, but some of them rebel against him.

Some of the new faces spotted in the trailer include T.O.P, Jo Yuri, Lim Si Wan, and veteran actor Song Young Chang. Song’s appearance, however, has sparked some controversy regarding his past sex crime conviction.

In September 2000, Song was convicted of underage prostitution. It was reported that he paid 150 USD to have sexual intercourse with a 16-year-old girl twice in a car. The court found him guilty and sentenced him to 10 months of suspended prison term, along with two years of probation.
The actor barely served a month in prison before he was out on probation. After his release, he moved to Canada with his family under the pretext of “studying English.” His acting career continued in Canada, where he appeared in a few musicals.
Song’s reputation remains tainted as the first person in the Korean entertainment industry to be convicted of underage prostitution. He was banned from major broadcast channels such as KBS, MBC, and EBS. But after his return to Korea, Song has appeared in multiple K-Dramas and movies in supporting roles, becoming a well-known face among avid viewers.

[Artaxerxes II]

https://www.soompi.com/article/535535wp ... n-and-more:

The verdict is in for TV personality Go Young Wook, who was charged for sexually assaulting and harassing a minor — he will be spending time behind bars.

On September 27, the Seoul Courts reduced Go Young Wook’s original five-year jail time to two years and six months. He will also need to wear an electronic anklet for three years and have his profile go public for five years.

The court ruled, “After seeing how the victim’s statements were inconsistent, it was hard to completely believe her claims.”

They continued, “Even so, out of the three counts of sexual assault charges, the victim’s statements are consistent,” and “The other two counts cannot be counted as misconduct.”

Also, “Buying the interest of young females with the title of a celebrity and committing a crime is a serious offense. Also, the defendant committed additional offenses during the investigation period. The defendant will not receive special treatment because he is a celebrity,” the courts ruled.

However, the courts added, “But seeing that the defendant is genuinely reflecting on his actions and has already lost his fame as a celebrity, we have given him the lowest form of a sentence.”

On Go Young Wook’s claim that the electronic anklet sentence is unreasonable, the courts stated, “The defendant has a preference for younger females and does not have a good consciousness of sex,” and “Not decreeing the electronic anklet sentence just because he is a celebrity when he has those bad and dangerous tendencies is not consistent with the law. The anklet sentence has actually been decreased since many people have already been informed about the defendant’s wrongdoings.”

Go Young Wook is the first celebrity to have been sentenced to wear an electronic anklet.

By the way, he already spent his charges (including spending 5 years in SK's Sex offender registry), but that doesn't stop Korean antis from hounding him, since they recently mass reported and shut his Instagram and YouTube accounts over his past criminal record. His last remaining media presence is on Twitter: https://www.koreaboo.com/news/convicted ... own-tweet/