CBS News Reporter Lara Logan Sexually Assaulted By Egyptian Protesters

During Friday's celebration in Cairo's Tahrir Square, CBC News and 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan got separated from her camera crew and was beaten and sexually assaulted by protesters. The attack reportedly happened moments after the photo in this post was taken.

"A dangerous element" in the crowd surrounded Logan and her crew, said CBS spokesman Kevin Tedesco. "It was a mob of more than 200 people whipped into a frenzy. In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew," he said in a statement Tuesday. "She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers." Logan went home to the United States on the first flight Saturday and is recovering in a hospital, Tedesco said. CBS, where Logan is chief foreign correspondent, said there would be no further comment about the attack and Logan asked for privacy. At least 140 reporters have been injured or killed covering Egypt since Jan. 30, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Logan and her camera crew had been held at gunpoint by Mubarak's security forces on February 2nd, after which they were ejected from the country. Yet she returned last week to continue covering the revolution.

Subway Flasher Arrested

After a New York woman's stand against a subway flasher went viral, making national news, today the NYPD announced that the creep has been arrested.

Police confirmed on Wednesday that Mario Valdivia, 51, of Queens, was arrested for allegedly exposing himself to a woman on a train on September 4. Valdivia faces several charges including forcible touching, public lewdness and sex abuse. The video was originally posted to ihollaback.org - a website described as 'a movement dedicated to ending street harassment using mobile technology.'

Local NYC television revealed today that Valdivia has been arrested for similar crimes in the past. Kudos to our hero of the 4 train.

Liberty University Prof Busted In Sex Crime

At Dead Jerry Falwell University last week:

A judge has granted $25,000 bond to a Liberty University professor accused of a sex crime with a student. Joshua Young Moon is charged with object sexual penetration by force. Moon appeared at the Lynchburg courthouse on Monday. In less than a week, Moon has gone from popular professor to inmate. Prosecutors say it happened when a 21-year-old student came to Moon's office last Tuesday to do classwork. The prosecutor says the victim was in pain, so she got on the floor and let Moon give her a massage. That's when she says she fell asleep, and woke up to find him touching her inappropriately.

Moon was ordained at Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church and is the pastor of a church in Durham, NC. Liberty University has already fired him, lending credence to the student's charge.

Denial Of The Year

Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster: "I would not describe any section of our site as 'sex related.'"

Wait, what?

In case you haven't been paying attention, less than one month after the Craigslist-related murder of gay ABC newsman George Weber, tabloids have dubbed another customer of the site as the "Craigslist Killer" after being apprehended for murdering a woman who advertised "erotic massage" there. The story has lead the evening news and been front-page fodder here in NYC for several days now.

Connecticut's attorney general says: "Craigslist has the means - and moral obligation - to stop the pimping and prostituting in plain sight. Like any bricks-and-mortar establishment, Craigslist has the responsibility and power to prohibit prostitution, pornography, and inappropriate behavior on its premises."

So. Buyer beware? Really beware? Or do you think the government might be justified in taking a site like Craigslist down in the name of public safety, as some are demanding?

UPDATE: I should have made it clear that I think this is all a bunch of hooey. (Except for Buckmaster's dumbass "no sex on CL" denial.) CL is certainly not the only place to meet potential killers. They're just having a super-bad run of publicity right now.

It's Only Rape If She's A Real Woman

In what is somehow being hailed as a landmark case, a South Korean court has convicted a man for raping a transsexual woman, but apparently only because it was proven that the woman had been having regular vaginal sex with her longtime partner, therefore making her a "real" woman capable of being raped.

The Busan District Court yesterday convicted a man of rape against a transgender woman in the country's first ruling recognizing a legally male plaintiff as a rape victim. The 28-year-old defendant, surnamed Shin, was given a suspended three-year prison term with 120 hours of community service, officials at the court said. In August last year, Shin robbed the 58-year-old plaintiff of 100,000 won ($68), and raped her after having broken into her house. "The victim should be seen as a woman, the object of the rape crime in the criminal law, given that she underwent a sex reassignment surgery in 1974 at age 24, until which point she had behaved as a woman, and given that she had lived with a man, who was aware of her case, for 10 years," said Koh Jong-joo, the presiding judge at the court, in his ruling.

"Although the victim is legally a man, it is only the gender that was reported at birth, hardly the genuine sex the victim has ultimately accepted." The prosecutors initially indicted Shin only on charges of robbery and assault as they thought it would be difficult to press rape charges against him. Later, they changed the charges to break-in and rape charges after consultation with the court, officials said. The prosecution earlier sought a five-year jail sentence for Shin. The court added that if the victim's right to make her own sexual decisions is infringed on when the victim is physically able to have vaginal sex with a man, it can constitute rape. The ruling contrasts with the previous one in 1996 by the Supreme Court on a similar case. At the time, the top court did not recognize then 38-year-old victim as a woman, citing physical differences such as chromosomes, sexual organs and no reproductive ability.

Does this mean that South Korea has no law against male rape? The perpetrator in the above case was sentenced to a whopping 120 hours of community service. Disgusting.

Letters To Santa Really Do Work

A man in Texas was arrested for child molestation after a 9-year old girl wrote a letter to Santa asking for it to stop.

The 9-year-old's plea to Santa, written as a school assignment, launched the investigation and led to the first charge of continuous sexual abuse last week. On Tuesday, Cantu was accused of abusing the girl's older sister, who was also mentioned in the letter. Investigators have refused to share the letter to Santa, saying it is evidence in an ongoing investigation. But the charging affidavit described it as "a wish list to Santa" asking that the girl's relative stop touching her and her sister. Pharr Police spokesman Lt. Guadalupe Salinas said the girls' mother had been unaware of any abuse but that the relative had moved out of the home after an earlier falling out.

The kid's teacher had read the letter and called a school counselor, who brought in the cops.

The Dirty Details On Chris Ortloff

Yesterday we learned that Chris Ortloff (the anti-gay former NY Assemblyman and current Parole Board commissioner) was arrested for solicitation of sex with a minor and possession of kiddie porn. Today we get the details:

A tough-on-crime state parole board commissioner faces up to life in prison after trying to set up a sexual liaison with two young sisters, authorities said Tuesday. Chris Ortloff, 61, was arrested in an Albany-area hotel late Monday by federal officials who found condoms, lubricant, vibrators and a camera in his room.

The former 20-year Assembly Republican thought he was going to be meeting a 12-year-old girl and her 11-year-old sister who were to be dropped off by a parent, Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Spina said. Instead, the knock on the hotel door came from agents with the New York State Police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. A source said Ortloff opened the hotel room door naked.

Ortloff, married with two sons, had been chatting since June online and by phone with cops posing as the girls before trying to set up a meeting, Spina said. State police investigator Mary Barrette filed a criminal complaint saying Ortloff send emails saying he wanted to engage in "masturbation, oral sex, and vaginal intercourse with who he believed to be 11- and 12-year-old minors."

As always seems to be the case in these situations, Ortloff ran for office as a "tough on sex crimes" kind of guy and was an early supporter of Megan's Law. He's now been suspended from the Parole Board.

Kryptonite For DADT

Jockohomo tipped me to this story about an Army drill sergeant charged with sex crimes for forcing a male private to dress in a Superman costume and have sex, under the guise of "helping" the soldier with his depression. This is more bad news for the DADT-repeal movement, as surely the fundies will jump all over this, as they did with last week's conviction of an Air Force officer for drugging and raping four servicemen.