Court Digest

California
Court document claims Meta knowingly designed its platforms to hook kids, reports say
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook parent Meta Platforms deliberately engineered its social platforms to hook kids and knew — but never disclosed — it had received millions of complaints about underage users on Instagram but only disabled a fraction of those accounts, according to a newly unsealed legal complaint described in reports from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

The complaint, originally made public in redacted form, was the opening salvo in a lawsuit filed in late October by the attorneys general of 33 states.

Company documents cited in the complaint described several Meta officials acknowledging the company designed its products to exploit shortcomings in youthful psychology such as impulsive behavior, susceptibility to peer pressure and the underestimation of risks, according to the reports.

Others acknowledged Facebook and Instagram also were popular with children under age 13 who, per company policy, were not allowed to use the service.

Meta said in a statement to The Associated Press that the complaint misrepresents its work over the past decade to make the online experience safe for teens, noting it has “over 30 tools to support them and their parents.”

With respect to barring younger users from the service, Meta argued age verification is a “complex industry challenge.”

Instead, Meta said it favors shifting the burden of policing underage usage to app stores and parents, specifically by supporting federal legislation that would require app stores to obtain parental approval whenever youths under 16 download apps.
One Facebook safety executive alluded to the possibility that cracking down on younger users might hurt the company’s business in a 2019 email, according to the Journal report.

But a year later, the same executive expressed frustration that while Facebook readily studied the usage of underage users for business reasons, it didn’t show the same enthusiasm for ways to identify younger kids and remove them from its platforms, the Journal reported.

The complaint noted that at times Meta has a backlog of up to 2.5 million accounts of younger children awaiting action, according to the newspaper reports.

Pennsylvania
Man pleads guilty in 2016 slaying of store owner, 81
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A man has pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in the shooting death of a south Philadelphia corner store owner on Christmas Eve nearly seven years ago.

Maurice Green, 38, was sentenced to serve from 24 to 40 years in state prison last week on the murder charge and a related gun offense in the 2016 murder of 81-year-old Marie Buck.

“To shoot an unarmed, helpless 81-year-old woman … over a fight over a necklace is incomprehensible,” said Common Pleas Judge Glenn Bronson, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Prosecutor Joanne Pescatore said Green intended to kill another person he blamed for the theft of his $5,500 gold chain but that person wasn’t in the store that morning.

Green expressed remorse and apologized to the family in court Monday, saying he couldn’t bear to look Buck’s family in the eye and would give “an arm, a leg,” if he could to atone. He recalled growing up down the street from Marie’s Grocery and buying sandwiches there.

“I feel as though she haunts me at night,” Green said of Buck, who ran the store for more than 40 years and was a month from retirement.

A jury convicted Green of first-degree murder in a 2019 retrial after his first trial ended in a hung jury. He was sentenced to life without parole, but an appeals court overturned the verdict in 2021, saying the trial judge shouldn’t have allowed prosecutors to present evidence of a previous crime for which the defendant was never arrested or convicted.

Pescatore called the case “a sad commentary on drugs in this city” and said the family “just want this over with.” Family members, some crying, sat together in the courtroom during the proceedings.

“I just don’t think I could’ve went through another trial,” said Buck’s daughter, Marie, 62, who lives with her 87-year-old father two doors down from the former store now used as a medical office. “I miss her more than life itself,” she said.

New York
Andrew Cuomo accused of sexual harassment by former aide in new legal filing
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is being sued by a former aide who says Cuomo sexually harassed her while he was still in office.

Cuomo’s former executive assistant Brittany Commisso filed the case against the ex-governor in state Supreme Court in Albany on Wednesday. The filing, a three-page summons, came just before the expiration for lawsuits under the Adult Survivors Act, a special law which gave victims of sexual abuse a one-year window for claims that would otherwise be barred by time limits.

Commisso was one of at least 11 women who accused Cuomo of sexual misconduct, leading to his abrupt 2021 resignation in a #MeToo-era scandal that marked a severe fall from grace for the Democrat. He has denied the allegations.

Commisso’s lawsuit alleges sexual harassment and unwanted touching from Cuomo and said she was punished for reporting the incidents. The case seeks monetary damages. Her allegations led to a criminal charge against Cuomo that was eventually dismissed last year at the request of a county prosecutor who described her as credible but said he couldn’t prove the case.

Cuomo attorney Rita M. Glavin blasted the latest filing.

“Ms. Commisso’s claims are provably false, which is why the Albany County District Attorney dismissed the case two years ago after a thorough investigation. Ms. Commisso’s transparent attempt at a cash grab will fail. We look forward to seeing her in court,” Glavin said in a statement.

The Adult Survivors Act has cleared the way for a wave of lawsuits against famous men accused of sexual misconduct, with a slew of cases coming in the final weeks before it was set to expire. Over the past year, it has led to more than 2,500 lawsuits, including cases against former President Donald Trump, hip hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs and comedian and actor Russell Brand.

The Associated Press doesn’t identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they decide to tell their stories publicly, as Commisso has done in interviews.

New York
Woman alleges Jamie Foxx sexually assaulted her at NYC bar
NEW YORK (AP) — A woman has alleged in a lawsuit that actor, singer and comedian Jamie Foxx sexually assaulted her at a rooftop bar in New York in 2015, an incident the actor says “never happened.”

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in state Supreme Court in Manhattan by a woman known in the documents only as Jane Doe alleges that Foxx rubbed her breasts and groped her under her pants against her will.

The suit says she and a friend were seated at a table next to Foxx’s at Catch NYC in 2015. The woman’s asked Foxx for a photo, and the two women took several pictures with him, the suit says. It says that afterward, he began complimenting her “super model body” and told her she looked like the actor Gabrielle Union.

He then grabbed her by the arm and took her to a secluded area, where he put both hands under her crop top and felt her breasts, the suits says. She tried to pull away from Foxx as he reached into her pants with his hands and touched her genitals, the suit also alleges.

When the woman’s friend found them, he stopped and the women walked away, the suit says.

A statement in response released Thursday from a representative for the 55-year-old Foxx said the alleged incident never happened.

“In 2020, this individual filed a nearly identical lawsuit in Brooklyn. That case was dismissed shortly thereafter. The claims are no more viable today than they were then. We are confident they will be dismissed again. And once they are, Mr. Foxx intends to pursue a claim for malicious prosecution against this person and her attorneys for re-filing this frivolous action,” the statement said.

The woman is seeking damages to be determined at trial, the suit says.

The lawsuit was one of many filed this week under a temporary New York law, the Adult Survivors Act, that allows adult victims sue over alleged sexual attacks that previously would have been outside the statute of limitations. The law expired after Thursday.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly.


New York
Former Penthouse magazine model sues Axl Rose  saying he raped her in 1989
NEW YORK (AP) — A former Penthouse magazine model sued Guns N’ Roses singer Axl Rose on Wednesday, saying he raped her in a 1989 attack at a New York City hotel that left her with anxiety and depression and harmed her career.

Sheila Kennedy, 61, filed the lawsuit in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for physical injury, pain and suffering, severe emotional distress, mental anguish, humiliation, embarrassment, anxiety and economic harm.

The lawsuit was filed against Rose, 61, of Malibu, California, under a temporary New York law, the Adult Survivors Act, that lets adult victims sue over attacks that occurred even decades ago. The law expires after Thursday.

Attorney Alan S. Gutman said in a statement on behalf of Rose: “Simply put, this incident never happened. Notably, these fictional claims were filed the day before the New York State filing deadline expires.”

He added: “Though he doesn’t deny the possibility of a fan photo taken in passing, Mr. Rose has no recollection of ever meeting or speaking to the Plaintiff, and has never heard about these fictional allegations prior to today. Mr. Rose is confident this case will be resolved in his favor.”

In her lawsuit, Kennedy, of Palm Springs, California, alleges that she met Rose in February 1989 in a Manhattan nightclub, where the singer invited her to join a party in his hotel suite afterward.

According to the lawsuit, Kennedy saw Rose have sex with another model before he became angry with the woman, ordering her out of his suite.

He then turned toward Ken­nedy, dragging her across a floor by the hair and tying her hands together with pantyhose, before assaulting her from behind, the lawsuit said.

“Rose made no attempt to ask for or check that Kennedy was consenting,” the lawsuit said. “He treated her like property used solely for his sexual pleasure.”

The lawsuit said the attack left Kennedy with lifelong emotional, physical, psychological and financial damage and “symptoms akin to post-traumatic stress disorder whenever she hears Rose’s name or the music of Guns N’ Roses.”

She was diagnosed with anxiety and depression because of the attack and her earnings have suffered because she has avoided nightclubs and social scenarios where she could encounter Rose or hear his music, and those social contacts are important for her career, the lawsuit said.

Kennedy has made the allegations about Rose in the past, including in a 2016 memoir, “No One’s Pet,” and in a 2021 documentary, “Look Away,” about women sexually abused in the music industry.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Kennedy has done.