Billionaire Faces $50M Sexual Assault Lawsuit

West Palm Beach, Fl. A woman filed suit Wednesday accusing a New York billionaire of sexually assaulting her when she was underage.
The unidentified woman said she was 16 when she was brought to Jeffrey Epstein's Palm Beach mansion and paid $200 to give the money manager a massage. Instead, she claims he abused her.
The suit seeks more than $50 million in damages from the billionaire money manager.
Epstein's attorney, Guy Lewis, said the lawsuit is defamatory and the allegations are false.
Another teenage girl made similar claims against Epstein in a lawsuit filed last month. She is also at the center of a criminal case against Epstein in West Palm Beach, where he is charged with one felony count of solicitation of prostitution. He faces up to five years in prison if convicted. A hearing in that case is set for March.
He also faces a similar sex abuse lawsuit in New York.
Epstein was named one of New York's most eligible bachelors in 2003 by the New York Post. He has lavish homes in Manhattan, New Mexico, Florida and the Virgin Islands.

Law Would Ban Serving Obese Diners

JACKSON, Miss. A state lawmaker wants to ban restaurants from serving food to obese customers - but please, don't be offended. He says he never even expected his plan to become law.

"I was trying to shed a little light on the number one problem in Mississippi," said Republican Rep. John Read of Gautier.. More than 30 percent of adults in Mississippi are considered it obese, according to a 2007 study by the Trust for America's Health, a research group that focuses on disease prevention.

The state House Public Health Committee chairman, Democrat Steve Holland of Plantersville, said he is going to "shred" the bill. "It is too oppressive for government to require a restaurant owner to police another human being from their own indiscretions," Holland said Monday.

The bill had no specifics about how obesity would be defined, or how restaurants were supposed to determine if a customer was obese.

Al Stamps, who owns a restaurant in Jackson, said it is "absurd" for the state to consider telling him which customers he can't serve. He and his wife, Kim, do a bustling lunch business at Cool Al's, which serves big burgers - beef or veggie - and specialty foods like "Sassy Momma Sweet Potato Fries."

"There is a better way to deal with health issues than to impose those kind of regulations," Al Stamps said. "I'm sorry - you can't do it by treating adults like children and telling them what they can and cannot eat."



Source: AP

Women Conned her way into Harvard

A high school dropout who stole the identity of a missing South Carolina woman and used it to gain admission to two Ivy League colleges has been arrested, police said Sunday.
A fugitive for more than a year, Esther Reed was arrested Saturday by U.S. Marshals in suburban Chicago, said Clark Brazier, a spokesman for the police department in Traveler's Rest, South Carolina.
Reed is scheduled to have a bond hearing this week in Illinois. South Carolina authorities are seeking to extradite her on charges of aggravated identity theft and wire fraud.
Reed assumed the identity of Brooke Henson, who was 20 years old when she disappeared more than eight years ago from Travelers Rest, investigators say.
It's unclear how Reed obtained Henson's personal information, but Reed used Henson's identity to take the SAT and GED, and then applied to the schools, said Jon Campbell, a Travelers Rest Police Department investigator who spoke to CNN last year.
Officials at Harvard University and Columbia University have acknowledged that a Brooke Henson was enrolled at their schools, but said privacy laws prevent them from discussing details.
"There's a little relief that goes with [the news of Reed's arrest]," Brooke's aunt Lisa Henson told CNN Sunday. "But [Brooke] is still missing. I'd like to have some answers. I would love to see [Reed] and look her in the eye and say, 'You're a horrible person.' "
Police say they're confident Reed was not involved in Henson's disappearance.
Authorities believe Henson was killed by someone who knew her. However, no body has been found and no arrests have been made.
Henson's family had heard nothing about their missing relative for years until the summer of 2006, when New York City authorities told police in Travelers Rest that they had found her, alive and well, in Manhattan.
The police relayed that message to Henson's family. "I was jumping for joy," said Lisa Henson. "It was incredible."
But the family's joy was short-lived when it was revealed that the woman found was actually Reed.
An ex-boyfriend told CNN that Reed -- posing as Henson -- often bragged about being a world-class chess player who earned a living playing the game competitively.
The man told CNN that he believed her until he challenged her to a game and beat her.
Originally from the tiny town of Townsend, Montana, Reed had been reported missing by her family in 1999, around the same time that Henson disappeared.

Source: AP