Oscar winning songwriter and director Joseph Brooks is led by police in handcuffs, Tuesday, June 23, 2009, in New York. Brooks has been charged with rape and sexual assault after at least four women accused Brooks of luring them to his home and performing sex acts on them while they auditioned for movie roles. (AP Photo/Louis Lanzano)"You Light Up My Life" songwriter indicted for rape
Joseph Brooks, the 71-year-old director, producer and songwriter who scored an Academy Award and No. 1 hit for penning the 1977 ballad "You Light Up My Live" was indicted Tuesday on charges of raping and sexually assaulting 11 women in his New York apartment.
His personal assistant, 42-year-old Shawni Lucier, was also indicted on charges of knowingly facilitating the crimes, which occurred between March 2005 and April 2008, several news services reported Wednesday.
Brooks pleaded not guilty to a 91-count indictment and posted a $500,000 bail, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney said. The case was adjourned until Aug. 11. The charges carry a penalty of at least 25 years in prison.
The victims, who ranged in age from 18 to 30, responded to an ad for an audition posted by Brooks on Craigslist and a talent website, and were allegedly lured to his Upper East Side apartment to see the Oscar he won for Best Original Song for the 1977 ballad.
Prosecutors said Brooks and Lucier then plied the women with drinks and possibly drugs. Toxicology results have been inconclusive.
Aside from writing and directing You Light Up My Life, Brooks also composed the music for and produced the 1983 cult hit Eddie and the Cruisers.
We'll never listen to that song the same way again...eek.
The View co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck said Wednesday a claim that she plagiarized parts of her best-selling diet book is "without merit."
She defended her book The G-Free Diet: A Gluten-Free Survival Guide on Wednesday, speaking to the camera briefly just before the first break on the ABC daytime show.(Photo by Sara Jaye Weiss/Startraks)
"I just want to assure you the allegations are without merit and are being handled appropriately," said Hasselbeck, 32, who has spoken openly about her self-diagnosed celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder linked to gluten proteins in wheat, barley and rye.
Susan Hassett, a self-published author on Cape Cod, alleges in the $3-million lawsuit filed in Boston Monday that Hasselbeck lifted content from her book on celiac disease "word for word," though she doesn't cite specific examples, noting also that the books follow a similar structure and chapter format.
She claims she sent Hasselbeck a copy of her own book–- the self-published Living with Celiac Disease-- along with a homemade cooking video, a newspaper story about the condition, her business card and a personal note last year.
Hassett says she will donate a portion of whatever proceeds she receives from the suit to create a camp designed for children with celiac disease. (Is this supposed to earn her brownie points with the judge?)
While this is entirely possible--though, how can people make up stuff like this and get away with it?--without examples of the "word-for-word" copying there is no lawsuit.
Teenager tumor shrinks after court-ordered chemo
The Minnesota teenager who fled with his mother to Mexico to avoid chemotherapy is responding well to his court-ordered cancer treatments.
Left: Danny Hauser with his mother, Colleen. (ABC News)But Danny Hauser and his parents credit their alternative therapies, not the chemotherapy, for the doctor's good news that 13-year-old's tumor has shrunk, ABC News reported.
So he wasn't getting better on the so-called natural remedies, and he starts getting better only after starting chemo, but it's the natural remedies and not the chemo shrinking the tumor. Alrighty then.
Danny, who has been diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma, insists he doesn't want chemo.
"Because it's poison," he told Good Morning America. "That's why."
His mother, Colleen Hauser, said the chemo treatments are hitting her son hard. "There's a lot of crying," she said.
She and her husband are worried that the chemicals used to treat cancers like their son's will leave him with damaging side effects.
Colleen Hauser has maintained that she fled with Danny last month because they wanted to treat his cancer with natural remedies despite a judge's ruling ordering him to undergo what doctors said was life-saving chemo treatment.
Sources: E! Online, The Associated Press, Reuters, ABC News
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