WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Thursday joined scores of advocates and survivors of domestic abuse to mark the 30th anniversary of the landmark Violence Against Women Act, a law he wrote and championed as a U.S. senator because he wanted to “change the culture of America” around this touchy issue.
Biden said that back then “society often looked away” and that violence against women was not treated as a crime in many places. He said a national hotline was not available to those suffering abuse and few police departments with what are known now as special victim units.
“My goal was to do more than change the law,” he said at a White House event marking Friday's 30th anniversary of the law. He said his goal was “to change the culture of America" by providing more protection and support for survivors and accountability for perpetrators.
“I believed the only way we could change the culture was by shining a light on that culture, and speaking its name,” he said.
Biden wrote and championed the legislation as a U.S. senator. It was the first comprehensive federal law that addressed violence against women and sought to provide support for survivors and justice. It sought to shift the national narrative around domestic violence at the time; that it was a private matter best left alone.
The White House said that between 1993 and 2022, annual rates of domestic violence dropped by 67% and the rate of rapes and sexual assaults declined by 56%, according to FBI statistics. A national domestic violence hotline has fielded more than 7 million calls since 1996, Biden said.
“It matters. It saves lives," he said Thursday.
During a hearing on domestic violence in 1990, Biden told the committee that "for too long, we have ignored the right of women to be free from the fear of attack based on their gender. For too long, we have kept silent about the obvious.”
He spent years advocating for the law, moved by horrible stories of domestic violence. Congress passed it in 1994 with bipartisan support. Then-President Bill Clinton signed it into law on Sept. 13, 1994.
“The Violence Against Women Act is my proudest legislative achievement,” Biden said at the event on the White House lawn. It was attended by hundreds of people, including survivors of domestic violence, advocates, administration officials and members of Congress.
The president also spoke about continued efforts to strengthen the law, including announcing that the Justice Department was awarding more than $690 million in grants, along with efforts to serve orders of protection electronically and strategies to address online gender-based violence, a growing problem that law enforcement struggles to combat.
Federal agencies also sent reminders on housing rights for survivors of domestic violence who live in federally funded homes, including that they can request emergency housing transfers.
"Today, officers, prosecutors, judges, families, and society at large understand what should have always been clear: these crimes cannot be cast aside as somehow distinct or private,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland. “Instead, we recognize that they are among the most serious crimes that our society faces and that we must continue to improve access to justice, safety, and services for survivors.”
Jen Klein, the White House gender policy adviser, said the measures are meant to keep pushing efforts to help survivors of domestic violence.
“While we have made tremendous progress since VAWA was signed into law in 1994, we also know that much work remains in the fight to prevent and end gender-based violence,” she said.
The law was reaffirmed in 2022, but it almost didn't happen. The sticking point was a provision in the last proposal, passed by the House in April 2019, that would have prohibited persons previously convicted of misdemeanor stalking from possessing firearms.
Under current federal law, those convicted of domestic abuse can lose their guns if they are currently or formerly married to their victim, live with the victim, have a child together or are a victim’s parent or guardian. But the law doesn’t apply to stalkers and current or former dating partners. Advocates have long referred to it as the “boyfriend loophole.”
Expanding the restrictions drew fierce opposition from the National Rifle Association and Republicans in Congress, creating an impasse. Democrats backed down and did not include the provision.
That provision was later addressed in Biden's bipartisan gun safety legislation signed by Congress in 2022, and now prohibits people convicted of misdemeanor crimes in dating relationships from purchasing or possessing firearms for at least five years.
President Joe Biden walk over to talk with reporters before leaving the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, to travel to New York. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs pleaded not guilty Tuesday to federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges. An indictment says the music mogul “engaged in a persistent and pervasive pattern of abuse toward women and other individuals.”
Later Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky refused to grant Combs bail and ordered him to be jailed pending trial.
Combs was arrested late Monday in Manhattan, roughly six months after federal authorities conducting a sex trafficking investigation raided his luxurious homes in Los Angeles and Miami.
Over the past year, Combs has been sued by people who say he subjected them to physical or sexual abuse. He has denied many of those allegations.
Here is the Latest:
The defense attorney for Sean “Diddy” Combs says he will appeal the decision to deny his client bail.
Combs has been indicted on sex trafficking and racketeering charges. A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the music mogul to be held without bail pending his trial.
As he left the courtroom, Combs' lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, said he is not surprised by the outcome and that he is looking forward to a bail hearing soon, saying: “Tomorrow we fight again.”
A judge has refused to grant bail to Sean “Diddy” Combs and has ordered him to be sent to jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking and racketeering charges.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky announced the decision Tuesday after hearing lengthy arguments from prosecutors and Combs’ lawyers.
Prosecutors asked that the music mogul be held without bail. Combs' attorneys proposed that he be released on a $50 million bond to home detention with electronic monitoring.
Combs’ defense attorney, who is asking that he be released on bail, has said in court that by coming to New York in anticipation of the charges, the music producer “did the exact opposite of what we see defendants do when they’re presented with problems in the court.”
Marc Agnifilo said Tuesday that Combs came to New York to “wait it out.”
Agnifilo also says Combs is receiving “treatment and therapy for things that he needs treatment and therapy for.” He says his client is “not a perfect person,” that he has used drugs and has been in toxic relationships.
Prosecutors seeking to have Combs' jailed without bail have pointed to a 2016 video of the music producer assaulting a woman as she attempted to leave a California hotel.
In court Tuesday afternoon, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson said the assault happened after one of Combs' “Freak Offs,” which is defined in the indictment as “elaborate and produced sex performances.”
Johnson did not identify the woman who was attacked, but a video from that time first published by CNN this year shows Combs attacking R&B singer Cassie.
Johnson says Combs tried to bribe a hotel security officer “with a handful of cash in exchange for his silence,” but was unsuccessful.
She says the video showing the attack disappeared from the hotel’s servers within days and that this was no coincidence.
Johnson says Combs only acknowledged this attack relatively recently, after being confronted with the video, and that this proves he can’t be taken at his word.
Federal prosecutors have asked that Combs be jailed without bail, while his attorneys have proposed he be released on a $50 million bond.
In court Tuesday afternoon, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson said the government is seeking Combs’ detention on “multiple bases,” including the severity of the charges against him and the potential punishment of life in prison. She argued that he is a flight risk and there is a risk of witness intimidation.
“Mr. Combs physically and sexually abused victims for decades,” Johnson said. “He used the vast resources of his company to facilitate his abuse and cover up his crimes. Simply put, he is a serial abuser and a serial obstructor.”
Sean “Diddy” Combs has pleaded not guilty to federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges.
Combs stood up to enter his plea in a New York courtroom Tuesday.
An indictment unsealed Tuesday alleges Combs presided over a sordid empire of sexual crimes, coercing and abusing women for years while using blackmail and shocking acts of violence to keep his victims in line.
A motion for bail from Combs’ attorneys proposes he be released on a $50 million bond secured by his home in Miami.
The motion filed Tuesday also proposes his detention at home with GPS monitoring, with his travel restricted to federal districts in south Florida and southern New York.
The motion says Combs will turn over his passport and that he is attempting to sell his private jet. It says he has remained in the country even though there were no restrictions on his travel, and that his attorneys have kept authorities updated on his location.
It adds that “conditions at Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn are not fit for pre-trial detention.”
Prosecutors say Combs repeatedly engaged in violence towards his employees and others.
In a court filing Tuesday, prosecutors say Combs and an unidentified co-conspirator kidnapped someone at gunpoint a few days before Christmas in 2011 in order to facilitate a break-in at another person’s home. They say multiple witnesses, police reports and other records corroborate the incident.
The detention memo also says that two weeks later, Combs' allies set fire to a vehicle by slicing open its convertible top and dropping a Molotov cocktail inside.
Prosecutors say police and fire department reports document the arson and that multiple witnesses heard Combs brag about his involvement.
Prosecutors say Combs should be denied bail because he is a serious flight risk.
In a detention memo filed in court, prosecutors say Combs has “seemingly limitless resources” to flee, pointing out that his net worth is close to $1 billion, including over $1 million in personal cash on hand as of last December.
They said he has had a personal plane for international travel since 2019, along with multiple vehicles in multiple locations.
The letter says Combs “has the money, manpower, and tools” to flee without detection.
Prosecutors say the violence Combs exacted on his victims was so extreme that he should be denied bail.
In a detention letter written for the federal judge overseeing the music mogul's case, prosecutors described how Combs would assault women, employees and others “by throwing objects at them, choking them, pushing them, kicking them, and slamming them against walls and on to the ground.”
The letter says the violence was sometimes spontaneous and sometimes premeditated, including “resorting to kidnapping and arson when the defendant’s power and control were threatened.”
Prosecutors say Combs’ “disposition to violence cannot be reasonably prevented through bail conditions.”
The letter also says Combs should be denied bail because he has already reached out to potential witnesses in the case and that further attempts at witness tampering are likely.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams says Combs did not act alone.
During a news conference Tuesday, Williams said Combs’ security and household staff, as well as operators high up in the music industry were complicit. Williams says they cleaned up damaged hotel rooms and "delivered large quantities of cash to Combs to pay for the commercial sex workers.”
Williams says the investigation is ongoing, and is urging "anyone with information about this case to come forward and to do it quickly.”
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, whose office is bringing the case against Sean “Diddy” Combs, says the music mogul led a criminal organization that carried out kidnapping, forced labor and sex trafficking, among other crimes.
Speaking at a news conference Tuesday, Williams said authorities will seek to have Combs detained while he awaits trial.
He spoke before a display board showing images of some of the items recovered in searches of Combs’ homes in Los Angeles and Miami in March, including AR-15s and a drum magazine containing dozens of rounds of ammunition. He says agents also seized electronic devices that contain images and videos of sexual encounters.
Williams says: “Combs led and participated in a racketeering conspiracy that used the business empire he controlled to carry out criminal activity, including sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and the obstruction of justice.”
Combs' lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, has said he will fight to keep his client free. He says Combs is innocent and will plead not guilty.
Comb’s former longtime girlfriend, whom he was seen attacking in a March 2016 security video, has declined to comment on the federal case against him.
Douglas Wigdor, an attorney for the singer Cassie Ventura, said in a statement released before Combs was due to appear in court Tuesday that neither he nor his client have anything to say on the matter.
Wigdor says: “We appreciate your understanding and if that changes, we will certainly let you know.”
Ventura reached a settlement with Combs last November, one day after filing a lawsuit containing allegations of beatings and abuse by the music producer.
Outside the Manhattan courthouse early Tuesday, Combs’ lawyer, noted that his client came to New York City voluntarily because they knew the charges were coming.
Marc Agnifilo said: “Not a lot of defendants do that. He came to New York to, to basically engage the court system and start the case.”
Though the indictment was not unsealed at the time of his comments, Agnifilo said they know what the charges will be and that Combs is “innocent of these charges.” He vowed to “fight like hell” to get Combs released from federal custody.
The indictment alleges Combs hit, kicked and threw objects at victims, and sometimes dragged them by their hair, causing injuries that often took days or weeks to heal. It says Combs also threw people around, choked and shoved them.
Prosecutors say his employees and associates witnessed his violence and, rather than intervening, helped him cover it up, including by preventing victims from leaving, and locating and contacting victims who attempted to flee.
The indictment describes Combs as the head of a criminal enterprise that engaged or attempted to engage in activities including sex trafficking, forced labor, interstate transportation for purposes of prostitution, drug offenses, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice.
He’s accused of striking, punching and dragging women on numerous occasions, throwing objects and kicking them, and enlisting his personal assistants, security and household staff to help him hide it all.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams speaks about federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges against Sean "Diddy" Combs during a news conference, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
FILE - Sean Combs arrives at the LA Premiere of "The Four: Battle For Stardom" at the CBS Radford Studio Center on Wednesday, May 30, 2018, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP, file)
Lawrence Stark, of the Bronx borough of New York, makes comments in support of Sean "Diddy" Combs, outside Manhattan federal court, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
