> 19yo teen on molest charges

A TEEN was charged in court on Tuesday with two counts of molestation.

Lim Jun Ting, 19, allegedly squeezed the breasts of a 32-year-old woman at a lift landing at a block of flats in Sembawang Vista on July 16 last year.

He is also accused of hugging a 19-year-old student and squeezing her right breast at the lift landing of another block of flats in Canberra Road later that day.

He will appear in court again on July 7.

If convicted, he faces a jail term of up to two years or a fine or caning or with any combination of sentence on each charge.

> Cum together and win ST NDP rehearsal tickets

> Teacher and wife busted for filming women in toilet ‘just for fun’

KAWASAKI — Police on Sunday arrested a teacher from a Tama Ward elementary school and his wife for violation of the prefectural public nuisance prevention ordinance after the pair were caught filming videos in a women’s toilet.

According to police, Noriyoshi Sano, 44, and his wife Naoko, 42, admit to the charges, and were quoted as saying that they “filmed the videos to have fun as a couple. We’ve been doing it for the past five years.”

The couple was arrested on Sunday night after they were caught with a video camera, filming a Yamato City woman, 43, in the gymnasium toilet in Yokohama’s Hodogaya Ward.

The couple had hidden a tiny camera in the toilet paper roll, and the wife remotely controlled it from the next stall. The woman spotted the camera and caught Mrs Sano, before calling police.

> Naked man rescued from clothes dryer

A nude drunk man who got stuck trying to climb in a clothes dryer says he can’t explain what made him do it.

Dave Chapman said he started looking for a pair of underpants in his dryer after deciding to change his clothes following a drinking session with friends.

He said: “By that time, I’d had a fair bit to drink; I don’t know what flaming possessed me to get in it.

“I was trying to find these undies when everything just got stuck.”

Mr Chapman, from Waipopo, near Timaru, New Zealand, who was nude below the waist, managed to fit his head, shoulders and arms into the dryer in his search.

“I thought my undies were there, but obviously not,” he told the Timaru Herald.

He managed to get himself wedged in the 30cm-wide opening of the hot, recently used dryer up to his armpits.

He said: “I was panicking because there was no air.”

The situation got even worse when the dryer, fell to the floor, on top of him.

Still fully exposed – it took his friends, ambulance staff, a police officer and the Washdyke and Temuka fire brigades to free Mr Chapman.

Parts had to be taken off the dryer and Mr Chapman lifted horizontally and then pulled from the dryer.

> 71yo ‘You Light Up My Life’ writer accused of NYC rapes

The Oscar-winning composer and director behind “You Light Up My Life” raped 11 women he lured to his apartment with the promise of a starring role in a movie, prosecutors said at his arraignment Tuesday.

The women read an online ad placed by the director, Joseph Brooks, applied for the audition “and thought this was their chance to become a big star,” prosecutor Lisa Friel said.

Instead, once the women were in Brooks’ Manhattan apartment, he plied them with wine and forcibly raped them or used threats and coercive behaviour to make them have sex with him, prosecutors said.

The scrawny Brooks, 71, denied the accusations. He pleaded not guilty in Manhattan’s state Supreme Court, where he was arraigned on a 91-count indictment charging him with rape, criminal sexual act, sexual abuse, assault and other charges. He faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted of first-degree rape.

Justice Charles Solomon set bail at $500,000 bond or $250,000 cash bail and gave Brooks until Thursday to post it. The judge told Brooks not to leave town without letting the court know.

Brooks won the Oscar for Best Original Song for the 1977 ballad “You Light Up My Life.” He also wrote and directed the “You Light Up My Life” movie, about a comedian who has a one-night stand with a director.

District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said Brooks used his Hollywood credentials on the Craigslist classified ads Web site to attract the victims, aged 18 to 30. He said Brooks’ ad specified attractive young women for a starring role in a movie.

Morgenthau said nine of the 11 women were from the Portland, Ore., and Seattle areas and the others were from California and Florida. He said Brooks paid to fly 10 of the women, who didn’t know each other, to New York.

He said Brooks’ scheme, which ran from at least 2005 to 2008, was enabled by his personal assistant, Shawni Lucier, who helped pick the victims, interviewed them, arranged their travel and made them feel comfortable.

He said that when the women’s mothers called, Lucier, of Federal Way, Wash., would assure them their daughters were fine. When Brooks was ready to strike, he said, Lucier would leave the apartment “knowing what the end result would be.”

Brooks became a suspect after one woman went to a hospital and reported what had happened and another complained to authorities in February and March 2008, prosecutors said.

Assistant District Attorney Maxine Rosenthal, the lead prosecutor, said she found other victims by searching Brooks’ and Lucier’s computers and cold-calling women whose names she saw.

“We have records from his and his assistant’s computers that connect him to these women,” she said.

There might be another seven or eight victims, she said.

Brooks’ lawyer, Jeff Hoffman, said his client “told me he didn’t do any of these things.” He said Brooks, who suffered a stroke in 2008, “will have faith in the justice system.”

Lucier, 42, was indicted on nine counts of criminal facilitation and is expected to return from Washington and surrender to authorities in New York City next week, Morgenthau said. She has no attorney in New York and didn’t immediately return a telephone message seeking comment Tuesday.

> Form Three girl raped by friend, 19

SEREMBAN: A Form Three girl was allegedly raped repeatedly by a 19-year-old contract worker who tricked her into following him to Kuala Kangsar, Perak.

The girl is believed to have befriended him some time last year at a housing estate here.

She went with him by bus to Kuala Kangsar after he said he wanted her to visit his grandmother.

When they reached Kuala Kangsar last Friday, he told her that his grandmother was unable to see them and that they should spend the night at a budget hotel.

Once they got to the room, the man allegedly raped the girl several times and stayed with her in the room for two nights.

The girl returned home on Sunday.

Seremban police chief Assistant Commissioner Saiful Azly Kamaruddin said the victim had placed her trust in the man when he said he wanted her to meet his grandmother.

He said when the victim finally returned home, she was forced by her family to tell them where she had been.

When she finally told them what had happened, her stepfather asked her to contact the suspect and tell him to meet her at a designated spot.

The stepfather then followed the girl and managed to nab him.

He was taken to the Senawang police station here where the girl lodged a report.

> Spurned man vents fury on 17yo girlfriend

JOHOR BARU: A Form Five student who refused to marry a man who befriended her less than a month ago was abducted, tortured and molested by the man. He also made video recordings of her in the nude.

The suspect, in his 20s, hit the girl with a wooden handle of a hammer.

The man threatened to circulate her naked video recordings on the Internet if she escaped from him.

However, the girl mustered up enough courage to escape and sought the assistance of police, who arrested the suspect along with three other men several days ago.

Police also recovered at least two parang, knives and a hammer from the suspects.

Sources said that the two had had a normal relationship but the girl suspected something amiss about the man’s character and decided to end their relationship several days ago.

However, the man took the break-up badly and together with his friends started harassing the girl at her house.

It is learnt that the suspects managed to convince the victim to come out and see him for one last time by threatening to harm her mother.

When the girl came out to see him, he bundled her into a car and took her to his house in Taman Daya before tying her up and torturing her.

Sources said the suspect drugged her before using his mobile phone to take a video of him molesting her in the house toilet.

The suspect then warned the girl that the video would be distributed if she ran away.

The next day, the girl managed to escape and with the help of a taxi driver, lodged a police report.

A police official confirmed the case.

> 7 men gang rape 19yo girl for 12 days

KUANTAN: A trip to the movies on June 5 ended in a 12-day nightmare of rape and confinement for a 19-year-old girl.

After the movie ended, she told her friends she was going to her sister’s home in Taman Indera Sempurna. A man came up to her and offered her a ride. He said he knew the sister and lived in the same housing estate.

On the way, he stopped at his brother’s house. He invited her into the house, also in Taman Indera Sempurna, and when she went in, he locked the door and threatened to harm her if she didn’t obey him.

Police said she was imprisoned in the house, and the man and six others repeatedly took turns to rape her until she escaped on Tuesday about 7am.

She was able to flee as the men were asleep, and had forgotten to lock the front door.

She boarded a bus to Pekan and went home to her mother. The mother lodged a police report on Tuesday. The mother thought her daughter was with her sister and so did not worry about her absence.

Police then raided the rented house and picked up four men aged 19 to 36. Police said they are still looking for the remaining three men.

A source said a medical check-up at Tengku Ampuan Afzan hospital found injuries that confirmed the girl’s story.

> CPIB officer asked about penis size and its distinguishing marks

THE woman, who alleged that a senior anti-graft officer had hit her during questioning, testified on Friday that he asked her about the size of her husband’s penis.

Ms Lin Yanmei, 41, a Chinese national, was then being investigated for entering into a marriage of convenience with Mr Chan Hon Kwan, a 59-year-old Singaporean

Speaking through a Mandarin interpreter, she said that principal senior investigator Neo Siong Leng of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) accused her of being a prostitute – and an ugly one at that.

She said she felt very humiliated.

Neo is on trial for throwing a plastic file at Ms Lin and causing a cut on her lower lip and a chipped tooth.

The 33-year-old has also been charged with hurting Ms Lin’s knee that same day when he kicked a table, which hit her leg.

Ms Lin had gone to the CPIB building in Lengkok Bahru at about 11am on Jan 14 last year.

She was initially questioned by another officer.

After lunch, Neo took over and told her that she was ‘unlucky’ to have him assigned to her case.

She added that he was very loud and started off by banging a book on the table in the interview room.

He kept insisting that she admit that her marriage was a sham and she did not have sex with her husband.

When she denied his accusations, he demanded she tell him the size of her husband’s penis and its distinguishing marks, she said.

She did so but that did not stop Neo from saying hat she had only married Mr Chan to become a prostitute here.

But since she was so ugly she brought along her 16-year-old daughter from a previous marriage for the same purpose..

She had then pleaded with him: ‘You humiliated me and that’s enough. Please don’t humiliate my daughter.’

She said that after she had her dinner in the small interview room, Neo had taken her to his office to record a statement.

There, he had kicked a table that hit her knee and she had cried out.

Later, he had hit her with the black plastic file containing her marriage certificate and other documents causing her lower lip to bleed.

But she said that she was unsure whether it was intentional or accidental.

She also said that the investigation into her marriage had ended.

The court had earlier been told that she and her husband had been issued with a stern warning by CPIB.

Neo’s lawyer Subhas Anandan will be cross-examining her next.

> King of Pop Michael Jackson is dead

LOS ANGELES – MICHAEL Jackson, the child star turned King of Pop who set the world dancing to exuberant rhythms for decades, died on Thursday, a Los Angeles County Coroner’s office spokesman confirmed Thursday. He was 50.

‘Pop star Michael Jackson was pronounced dead by doctors this afternoon after arriving at a hospital in a deep coma, city and law enforcement sources told The Los Angeles Times,’ the newspaper reported on its website late on Thursday.

Jackson had been taken ill at his home and found not breathing by paramedics who rushed him to a hospital, the paper said.

The paper’s report followed news of Jackson’s death first reported by the TMZ entertainment website, which said that the singer suffered a cardiac arrest. There was no immediate comment from spokespersons for Jackson.

Known as the ‘King of Pop,’ for hit albums that included ‘Thriller’ and ‘Billie Jean,’ Jackson’s dramatic stage presence and innovative dance moves were imitated by legions of fans around the world.

His one-gloved eccentric style also earned him plenty of critics and another nickname, ‘Wacko Jacko.’

Jackson, who had lived as a virtual recluse since his acquittal in 2005 on charges of child molestation, had been scheduled to launch a comeback tour from London next month.

TMZ said on its website that Jackson suffered a cardiac arrest on Thursday afternoon at his Holmby Hills home and paramedics were unable to revive him. ‘We’re told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back,’ the site said.

Earlier, the Los Angeles Times said the singer had been rushed to a Los Angeles-area hospital by fire department paramedics.

The newspaper said paramedics performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation at the singer’s home before taking him to the UCLA Medical Centre hospital.

Jackson had been due to start a series of concerts in London on July 13 running until March 2010. The singer had been rehearsing in the Los Angeles area for the past two months.

The shows for the 50 London concerts sold out within minutes of going on sale in March.

His lifetime record sales tally is believed to be around 750 million, which, added to the 13 Grammy Awards he received, makes him one of the most successful entertainers of all time.

There were concerns about Jackson’s health in recent years but the promoters of the London shows, AEG Live, said in March that Jackson had passed a 4-1/2 hour physical examination with independent doctors. — REUTERS