New York - Joseph Brooks, who won an Oscar in 1978 for the
song You Light Up, was arrested Tuesday and charged with sexually
assaulting 11 women.
According to Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau,
Brooks, 71, used Craigslist and a talent web site to lure his victims
by promising private auditions at his Manhattan apartment. Brooks
pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Tuesday and was freed on bail
of 500,000 dollars.
Morgenthau said that Brooks would pay for the women to travel to
New York from the Seattle and Portland areas to audition for a role
as a boozy prostitute trying to seduce a man. Once in his apartment
Brooks forced them to drink a large glass of red wine, which may have
been drugged.
'He may very well have drugged them,' Lisa Friel, chief of the
District Attorney's sex crimes unit, told the New York Daily News.
'But he certainly forced them to drink quantities of wine that left
them incapacitated.'
Two of the women complained to rape counselors, leading police to
launch an investigation that lead to the other women.
Morgenthau said that prosecutors were looking at other possible
sexual assaults as far back as 1970.
Also charged was Shawni Lucier, Brooks' personal assistant, who
prosecutors said helped recruit the 18- to 30-year-old women and who
faces nine counts of criminal facilitation.
USA
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