Le Bain, the steamy Meatpacking District nightclub with the sexy roof bar perched atop the lusty Standard Hotel, is getting some very bad press today after a Brooklyn man was charged with sexually assaulting a woman in one of the bathrooms. According to investigators, Philip Manning, 34, met the unidentified 23-year-old woman at Le Bain early Monday morning, when he offered to buy her a drink. She claims he escorted her to a different part of the club, forced her into a bathroom, and refused to let her leave until she performed oral sex on him. more ›

A Staten Island man claims that NYPD officers in the Staten Island Gang Squad beat and sodomized him during a drug arrest earlier this year, then threatened his life if he ever came forward with the story. more ›

Time to recall the disturbing story of the kindergartner from Queens whose mom claims he was sodomized by a gang of 6 and 7-year-olds in a school bathroom last year. The boy's 31-year-old mother, Yenny Valero, is now suing the city for $10 million dollars. more ›

More details have been revealed about the motivations behind the Latin King Goonies anti-gay attack last fall. Nine members of the gang were arrested last year for allegedly torturing three gay men (and injuring another man) because of their sexual orientation. It seems that before the attack, the gang members tried to extort protection money from one of their victims—and when he wasn't able to pay up, they sodomized him with a miniature baseball bat. more ›

Four years ago, a jury found a Montessori school teacher guilty of having sex with a 13-year-old student back in the 1990s and guilty of bribing another underage student with whom she was having a relationship. Ever since then, Lina Sinha had been trying to get the convictions overturned. Yesterday, an appeals court gave her mixed news: They threw out the bribery conviction but upheld the sodomy conviction. more ›

In the case of Michael Mineo v. the NYPD, where Mineo has accused NYPD officers of sodomizing him as he resisted arrest in a subway station, the pair of boxer shorts Mineo was wearing that night is a key piece of evidence. The boxers have a hole from where officers allegedly sodomized Mineo with a baton, but now the boxers have gone missing. Mineo's lawyer, Steven Jackson, said, "We're nonplussed as to what happened. I've never been involved in a case where evidence disappeared." more ›

Yesterday, the police announced that the eighth suspect in the brutal anti-gay attacks in the Bronx was arrested and released a photograph of the ninth and final suspect, Ruddy Vargas-Perez. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said during a press conference, "The seven individuals that we have in custody initially, there’s an eighth one now, have made statements, video confessions or statements concerning their acts involving this case, but I wouldn’t characterize it as remorse." In fact, the suspects, accused of harrowing acts of torture, are reportedly claiming they were intimidated into participating! more ›

The police's announcement that seven members of the Latin King Goonies were arrested for torturing three men, apparently for being gay, offered horrifying details of the crimes. Now, there are more details about the cruel attacks which City Council Speaker Christine Quinn called "appalling and are even more despicable because the victims were clearly targeted in acts of hate simply because they are gay." more ›

You may recall yesterday's horrible story about a 5-year-old boy who claims four of his older classmates sodomized him in a school bathroom in June. Or you may have succesfully blocked it out as a method of Back to School self-preservation. If so, you're not alone: The Department of Education also seems eager to make the incident go away. A DOE spokesperson tells the Daily News that after an investigation, "the allegations could not be substantiated." But that's not what an NYPD detective told the boy's mother. more ›

Police are looking for a man believed to be responsible for raping two women in Clinton Hill this month. The suspect—described as being between 25 and 35 years old—reportedly threatened a 42-year-old victim with a gun on Gates Avenue between Classon Avenue and Irving Place at around 5:30 a.m. on March 23. He then allegedly dragged the woman to a vacant lot where he raped and sodomized her. more ›

Today a 22-year-old testified In Brooklyn Supreme Court that he was sexually molested by Borough Park Rabbi Baruch Lebovits. The young man, who's no longer part of the Hasidic community, was dressed in "jeans, white shirt, tie and a yarmulke" and spoke softly, according to the Daily News. "How did you feel?" asked the assistant district attorney. "Very uncomfortable and very confused," he responded. Lebovits will soon stand trial on charges of sodomizing two others, and has been accused of hundreds more counts of child rape and abuse [Pdf Charge Sheets]. Still, his lawyer called the witness a "con man" and warned the jury, "You're going to be sold a bill of goods." more ›

After a jury acquitted all three cops accused of participating in the sodomy of a Brooklyn man during his arrest in 2008, Officer Richard Kern—who faced the most serious charge of aggravated sexual abuse—told reporters, "I hope to get back on the street and do what I love to do: protect the people of Brooklyn." But it's going to be quite some time before that happens, if it happens at all. As the Times reports today, the three officers still face legal challenges within the Police Department, as well as the possibility of prosecution on the federal level. more ›

Alleged subway sodomy victim Michael Mineo worries his case will end with a hung jury. Already, he says he’s scared to “go out.” Jurors for his case have proved hard to handle—some didn’t understand what constituted “reasonable doubt” and one was booted after she told the group he’d heard one of Mineo’s accused assailants had prior convictions for police brutality. According to the Daily News, Mineo aired his fears at Rev. Al Sharpton’s rally yesterday and got support from the minister/talk show host. more ›

As tired as you probably are of hearing about Michael Mineo's buttocks, imagine how the jury feels. In court yesterday, they were treated to a graphic close-up photo of his behind, which the Times says "did little to clear up several mysteries." The image was presented during testimony from a colorectal expert called by lawyers representing three NYPD officers accused of participating in the sodomy of Michael Mineo in a Brooklyn subway station during his arrest in 2008. more ›

An Upper West Side building superintendent classified as a high-risk sex offender after pleading guilty to raping and sodomizing children has been accused of offering to help female tenants pay their rent in exchange for sex. Residents of three buildings maintained by William Barnason say they are horrified that the 57-year-old—who served more than 14 years in prison for attacks against kids as young as five years old—has access to the their apartments. And they're also scared by the high-risk sex offender's purportedly creepy behavior. more ›

Investigators have found "credible evidence" that a 14-year-old boy was the victim of "sexual abuse, sodomy, assault and violence" committed by an employee and another patient at a state-run psychiatric hospital. "He was being threatened [by his attackers] not to say anything and finally he couldn't take it anymore," said a lawyer representing the teen's mother, who intends to file a $20 million lawsuit against the state today, according to the Daily News. The teen—who is no longer a patient at the Bronx Children's Psychiatric Center—was admitted to the facility in June by his mother and reported the attacks in August. NY1 reports he has since been "transferred to a different location." more ›

The NYPD is being accused of another sexual assault case involving two of its officers, this one in a suit by a Queens woman who claims she was sodomized inside a precinct bathroom stall by a cop while another officer held watch outside. The woman claims she was brought to a police station last February by Detective Oscar Sandino following a drug raid of her apartment. On the ride over, she alleges Sandino threatened that her children would be taken away and alluded that the only way to smooth things over was to have sex with him. Once back at the station, she says he barged in on her while she was in a bathroom stall, ordered her to take her pants down and said, "Wow, you have an earring down there," before groping and sodomizing her. Sandino is a married father of two and was placed on modified duty last March. He told the Post, "I am not a rapist." Police sources say that the woman's previous complaints to Internal Affairs were only about inappropriate comments and calls made by Sandino. The Elmhurst woman says that she once met up with Sandino wearing a wire, but that he caught on and merely threatened her. more ›

Michael Mineo didn't hold back outside Brooklyn Federal Court yesterday, where he appeared to file a $220 million civil rights lawsuit against the city, the NYPD, and the officer accused of sodomizing him with a retractable baton last October in a Brooklyn subway station. Mineo, a body piercer employed in a tattoo parlor, explained, "It's humiliating. This is considered a rape. I'm a man. I was raped by 4 guys holding me down... putting a baton in my rectum. How am I supposed to feel? There is no forgiveness... There's no way I could've lied and made this up. They've tried to slander my name from the beginning...This is going to be in history. My kids are going to know about this when I have a kid." Mineo says he still experiences "enormous pain," including bowel problems, and is seeing a therapist. And his attorney says $220 million would send a message to the city that "we will no longer tolerate these kinds of egregious incidents of brutality." In response, Patrolmen's Benevolent Association lawyer Stuart London tells the Daily News, "The lawsuit is consistent with my feeling that this was always about money, not a search for the truth." more ›

The 24-year-old Brooklyn tattoo artist (pictured) who says three police officers beat and sodomized him in the Prospect Park subway station last October will be suing the city. Michael Mineo's lawyer tells the Post his client will seek $220 million in damages for the "physical pain, suffering and mental anguish, along with punitive damages suffered." In December, a grand jury indicted the three officers, and a criminal trial is expected to begin this fall. Mineo says the brutality took place after he ran from cops who accused him of smoking marijuana as he approached the station around noon on October 15th, 2008. After they apprehended him near the token booth, Mineo says Officer Richard Kern sodomized him with a baton. A transit cop who was in the station is expected to testify that he saw Kern put his baton on Mineo's buttocks. The damages sought in his civil lawsuit dwarf the money sought in other police brutality lawsuits—by comparison, Abner Louima, who was Mineo's predecessor in the annals of NYPD sodomy victims, sued the city for $155 million back in 2001, but got $8.6 million in a settlement. more ›

So how many years should a police officer spend in jail for sodomizing a handcuffed suspect with a broomstick? Justin Volpe, the cop who was convicted of torturing Haitian immigrant Abner Louima in a Brooklyn precinct in 1997 and who has been behind bars in a federal prison for nearly 12 years without any chance of parole, is petitioning the Justice Department for a reduced sentence. He's currently sentenced to 30 years, but letters from family, friends, and a priest pleading for leniency have been sent with his petition. (In 2004, GQ tagged along with Volpe's father, a retired NYPD cop, during depressing visits with his son.) more ›

Sibling rivalry on Staten Island appears to have gone way, way too far when a 16-year-old allegedly took part in the sodomizing of his 14-year-old brother with a broomstick. The unnamed older brother was the second teen arraigned in the attack, following 16-year-old Joseph LaValle earlier in the week. The group of up to six teens "pantsed" the boy before inserting the broom into his rectum. To add insult to injury, as a result of the incident, the victim now has to wear a colostomy bag. At the arraignment, the 16-year-old was issued a limited order of protection stipulating that the he have no "illegal" contact with his brother and was placed the suspect under a 6 pm curfew. more ›

Law enforcement sources tell the Post that they expect charges are forthcoming against Officer Richard Kern for his role in the alleged sodomizing of Michael Mineo in the Prospect Park subway station while cops were detaining him last month. While there was no inclination on what will happen to the other three officers under investigation, the paper says that a grand jury indictment of Kern is expected after Thanksgiving. Meanwhile yesterday Kern issued a statement through his lawyer reaffirming that he did "absolutely nothing wrong" and said that any implication that he used excessive force in a 2007 police misconduct investigation he had been cleared of previously were "a complete lie." more ›

Questions are being raised about the allegations made by Michael Mineo after this week's grand jury hearings against the officers he is accusing of sodomizing him while he was being arrested last month. Thursday's testimony from key witness and fellow arresting officer Kevin Maloney pointed the finger at Officer Richard Kern as being the one who used his police baton to sodomize Mineo. But Mineo's testimony accused Officer Alex Cruz of being the one who perpetrated the attack. Mineo's lawyer dismisses the discrepancy since Mineo was on the ground and could not have seen clearly which officer it was. Mineo appeared alongside Reverend Al Sharpton at a National Action Network rally today and thanked Sharpton for visiting him in the hospital last month. more ›

After the first day of grand jury testimony, things do not look good right now for Officer Richard Kern, one of the cops accused of sodomizing Michael Mineo while he was being detained in the Prospect Park subway station last month. Yesterday Officer Kevin Malone, one of the other officers who arrested Mineo on October 15th, testified that he saw Kern place his metal baton against Mineo's left side and run it from left to right across his buttocks as Malone was handcuffing him. That baton is about 2 feet long and 1-1/4 inches in diameter. more ›

The four officers accused of sodomizing a man with a radio antenna or baton after he resisted arrest in a Brooklyn subway station have been stripped of their guns and badges, an NYPD source tells the Post. The officers were ordered to report to the 71st Precinct station house in Brooklyn yesterday to be put on "modified duty." A lawyer for a fifth officer, who is believed to be supporting the victim's explosive allegation, reportedly met with prosecutors yesterday to brief them on his client's account of the incident. more ›

Things are not looking good for the officers who have been accused of sodomizing Michael Mineo in the Prospect Park subway station on October 15th. The NY Post reports that three of the officers accused have had their police lockers removed. The paper says that the NYPD has also taken away the badge and gun Officer Alex Cruz, the cop whose radio and baton are currently being tested for forensic evidence to support Mineo's accusations. As for the anonymous transit cop who is speculated to be in the process of breaking ranks and testifying to the DA against his fellow officers in the case, his lawyer talked to the press yesterday and emphasized that his client was in no way involved with the arrest and assault that allegedly took place. more ›

Sources in the NYPD say that a transit officer who participated in the arrest of Michael Mineo in a Brooklyn subway station earlier this month has broken ranks and will support Mineo's explosive sodomy allegation. more ›

The 24-year-old who says five police officers sodomized him with a police walkie-talkie last week spoke to the Daily News from his hospital bed. Michael Mineo, who was re-hospitalized, said, "The cops did this to me... I'm in so much pain... I've got pus coming out of me, man. I need help!" And the NY Post has photographs of Mineo being visited by the Reverend Al Sharpton, who called for an investigation into the matter and compared it to the Abner Louima incident. more ›

The NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating an explosive allegation made by a Brooklyn man who says five cops beat him and then sodomized him with a walkie-talkie antenna inside the Prospect Park B and Q subway station. One NYPD source tells the Daily News, "This is a bad one. It looks like one of the cops inserted his radio antenna in the victim's rectum." more ›