National Roundup

Georgia
Rapper Young Thug sues over swiped bag that had cash, songs
ATLANTA (AP) — Atlanta rapper Young Thug said an apartment concierge let an unknown person take his Louis Vuitton bag holding about 200 unreleased songs and more than $100,000 worth of jewelry and cash.

The performer’s allegations are in a lawsuit against the company that manages the apartment complex where he lived and its concierge company, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The newspaper said neither JLB Peachtree nor concierge company Pegasus Residential has answered requests for comment about the lawsuit filed last week in Gwinnett County Superior Court on behalf of Jeffery Williams, 30, whose stage name is Young Thug.

According to the lawsuit, a concierge at Trace Apartments put the bag in a secure location after the rapper accidentally left it next to his vehicle on Nov. 1, 2020, but another employee released it to someone else.

The missing bag contained a hard drive with about 200 unreleased songs that are worth at least $1 million, the lawsuit said.

The bag also held $40,000 in cash, a diamond-encrusted watch worth $57,000 and a $37,000 chain with inset diamonds, according to the lawsuit.

New York
Neurologist arrested on federal charges in sex assault probe
NEW YORK (AP) — A neurologist already facing charges that he raped patients in New York and New Jersey was arrested on new federal charges Wednesday alleging that he was a serial sexual abuser of women who went to him for help with debilitating chronic pain.

An indictment said Dr. Ricardo Cruciani, who specialized in rare pain syndromes, abused multiple patients over 15 years at his offices in New York City, Philadelphia and Hopewell, New Jersey.

It described the doctor, now 63, grooming patients who were dependent on him for care and prescriptions to addictive opioids, turning back rubs and hugs into gradually more invasive physical attacks and sexual demands.

If certain victims refused to engage in sex acts, he retaliated by referring them to another medical provider that would not prescribe the same combinations or quantities of narcotics, the indictment said.

“The alleged pattern of abuse in this case is outrageous,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a news release. “Doctors like the defendant take an oath to do no harm. It is difficult to imagine conduct more anathema to that oath than exploiting patients’ vulnerability in order to sexually abuse them.”

Cruciani was arrested Wednesday morning in Pocono Pines, Pennsylvania, and made an initial appearance Wednesday before a magistrate judge.

He was under a number of conditions, including being on house detention with location monitoring, surrendering travel documents, and faced a bail amount of $2 million.

The federal charges follow years of public complaints by Cruciani’s accusers that authorities in some places weren’t taking his crimes seriously,  particularly in Philadelphia, where he pleaded guilty to relatively minor misdemeanor groping counts involving seven patients.

Tullin, who saw Cruciani for years and said she was sexually assaulted repeatedly, said she was “deeply grateful” to federal prosecutors, who she said had “heard the victims and refuse to look the other way as so many others in this case have.”

“I have longed for the day he would be held accountable for these heinous crimes,” said Tullin. “It has been nearly four years since state charges were brought against him, yet there is no trial date in sight. It has been a living hell.”
Johnson called the federal charges a relief but said that the hospitals which employed Cruciani are “equally if not more responsible than him.”

The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, as Tullin and Johnson have done.

Cruciani was charged with five counts of enticing and inducing individuals to travel interstate to engage in illegal sexual activity. Each count carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

The Ivy League-trained neurologist has been free on $1 million bail set in pending state criminal cases in New York and New Jersey.

Manhattan prosecutors charged him in May 2018 with 35 felony counts, including rape and aggravated sexual abuse. The cases have faced a series of continuances and delays. His next court appearance in Manhattan was scheduled for Dec. 9.

According to the federal indictment, Cruciani met with victims alone in an examination room, sometimes behind a locked door, in hospital rooms, a hotel or an apartment.

At times, he conducted purported breast examinations and vaginal exams of certain victims even though he was not a practicing obstetrician or gynecologist, the indictment said.


California
Bail denied for mom in drunken teen party case
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Bail was denied Wednesday for a former Silicon Valley mother accused of hosting alcohol-fueled parties for her teenage son and his friends where she encouraged them to drink and have sex with intoxicated underage girls.

Shannon Marie O’Connor, 47, appeared for arraignment in a Santa Clara courtroom where a judge also issued 15 protective orders for people authorities say were victims, including one of her two teenage sons.

Defense attorney Sam Polverino argued that the prosecution’s successful request to deny bail for his client denied her rights and was “inconsistent with due process.” She’s scheduled to enter a plea Dec. 17.

Prosecutors allege that from June 2020 to this May, O’Connor held at least a half-dozen large parties and some smaller events in the Silicon Valley where she was then living. During the events, authorities said, she encouraged the mainly 14- and 15-year-old guests to drink and engage in sex acts.

At one party at her Los Gatos home in December, authorities said, O’Connor handed a condom to a boy and pushed him into a room with an intoxicated girl. Both were minors. The girl was able to get away and locked herself in the bathroom, Santa Clara County District Attorney investigator Christina Hanks detailed in court filings.

O’Connor was extradited following her Oct. 9 arrest in the Boise suburb of Star, Idaho, where she moved with her sons after the last school year.

She was extradited to California on Tuesday to face 39 felony and misdemeanor charges, including sexual battery and child molestation. She’s also facing three additional charges of grand theft tied to $120,000 in unauthorized charges on company credit cards from her former employer, including payments for clothing, limousine rides and alcohol delivery to her home.

O’Connor also is under investigation in Idaho over teen parties after authorities said they found 12 young people at her home when they served her arrest warrant.