Comedian Bill Cosby, dogged by accusations that he sexually assaulted more than a dozen women in years past, has canceled a Sunday evening performance in downtown Boston, citing a forecast for heavy snow.
Activists had planned to picket the evening performance, angry that Cosby continues to make appearances despite the allegations against him.
About a foot (30 cm) of fresh snow could accumulate in Boston on Sunday, according the National Weather Service, blanketing a region that is still grappling with the aftermath of two major snowstorms since the end of January.
"I was looking forward to hearing your wonderful applause and seeing all those smiling faces," Cosby said in a statement, indicating that he planned to return to the city soon.
Before the cancellation, organizers said they had expected more than 100 people to gather outside the Wilbur Theatre, where the 77-year-old comedian was set to give back-to-back shows after a spate of canceled live gigs across the United States.
"There is strong community here in Boston who is passionate, concerned for survivors and dedicated to fighting against rape culture -- even if that means protesting in the snow," said Boston resident Brandie Skorker, 28, one of the protest organizers, in an email last week.
Cosby, known in the United States and beyond for the lovable father figure he played on "The Cosby Show," has denied allegations that he drugged and sexually abused dozens of women over a period spanning more than 40 years.
His lawyer has called the claims "discredited" and "defamatory".
He has not been charged over any of the accusations, some of which are decades old and fall outside the statute of limitations for criminal or civil cases. He settled a 2005 civil suit alleging sexual misconduct.
That has not stopped theaters from cancelling some of his performances, including one that had been planned on Feb. 6 in Worcester, Massachusetts, about 40 miles west of Boston. Last month, dozens of protesters gathered outside a Denver theater, changing "shame on you" as Cosby performed to an audience of hundreds of people.
Both Netflix and NBC have axed planned projects with the actor.
Cosby owns a home in Shelburne Falls, about 100 miles west of Boston, and he received his graduate degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The university in November asked him to resign as the face of a fundraising campaign.
(Additional reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa; Editing By Frank McGurty and Robin Pomeroy)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - NBC News anchor Brian Williams said on Saturday that he will take himself off the evening newscast for several days as the network probes misstatements related to his experience reporting on the Iraq war in 2003.
"In the midst of a career spent covering and consuming news, it has become painfully apparent to me that I am presently too much a part of the news, due to my actions," Williams said in a statement posted on NBC News' website.
Williams said he planned eventually to return to the broadcast and "continue my career-long effort to be worthy of the trust of those who place their trust in us."
Lester Holt, who typically anchors NBC Evening News on weekends, will step in to handle the weekday evening broadcast in the interim, Williams said.
NBC, a unit of Comcast Corp, on Friday said it was launching an internal probe of Williams' false statements that he was in a helicopter that was brought down by enemy fire during the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Williams has admitted that he portrayed the episode inaccurately, but his apology - in which he said he misremembered the incident - provoked widespread derision, with some war veterans calling for his resignation.
(Reporting by Christian Plumb; Editing by Dan Grebler)
The killing of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh by Islamic State has been explained as an act of retaliation for the air campaign against it. But there have been many questions about whether immolation is a valid form of punishment in Islamic law – and many Muslim scholars have argued that it is not.
This is where the 14th-century Muslim scholar Ibn Taymiyya comes in. The 22-minute video of al-Kasasbeh’s murder ends with a quotation from his works and has sparked much debate. Retaliation and vengeance, as well as retribution, are perhaps important categories for making sense of the killing but they miss Islamic State’s stated intention: deterrence and a call to convert.
Ibn Taymiyya of Damascus was one of the most prolific and sophisticated scholars of medieval Islam, and his legacy is fiercely debated today.
It is not only jihadist ideologues who take inspiration from him, but also a wide range of Salafis, modernists and even philosophical theologians. Debate has been most intense over whether Ibn Taymiyya’s religious rulings against the Mongols threatening Syria in the early 1300s can be used to justify jihadist violence today.
The Mongols had converted to Islam, but Ibn Taymiyya ruled that they should be fought anyway because they resembled the rebel Kharijis of early Islam. Some contemporary jihadists have invoked Ibn Taymiyya’s anti-Mongol rulings to justify making enemies of fellow Muslims. Most Muslim scholars, on the other hand, insist that Ibn Taymiyya’s rulings are certainly not relevant for today and were perhaps even imprudent in their time.
Islamic State’s video does not cite Ibn Taymiyya’s anti-Mongol fatwas but it does feature a quote from him as justification for the murder of al-Kasasbeh:
If in public exemplary punishment (tamthil) there is a call to [the unbelievers] to believe or a deterrence for them from hostility, then it is here [a matter of] carrying out the prescribed punishments and legal jihad.
The Arabic word tamthil, which I have translated as “exemplary punishment”, is often understood to include mutilation of the body. But the text provides no explicit justification for immolation, and I do not know whether Ibn Taymiyya could be cited to legitimate that kind of punishment. Rather, the point of the quotation is to provide pragmatic reasons for punishing enemies: it is to deter them from fighting against the Muslims and even to draw them to Islam.
I found the video’s quotation in two collections of Ibn Taymiyya’s works, first in a 1987 edition of Al-Fatawa al-kubra (5:540), and second in the jihad section of the Supplement or Mustadrak to Majmu‘ al-fatawa (3:223-4). There are minor differences between these two texts and the quotation in the video. For example, the video reads “public” (sha’i‘) to speak of exemplary punishment where my two sources read “permissible” (sa’igh).
Jordan has launched heavy attacks on IS in response to the murder.
EPA
Ibn Taymiyya’s argument in the two texts is that, in war, Muslims have a right to retribution and vengeance if enemy unbelievers punish them in a way that makes a public spectacle of them. However, Muslims need not retaliate at all, and this is fact better because it adds nothing to the jihad effort.
Yet, if punishing unbelievers is not a matter of vengeance and retribution but rather calling the enemy unbelievers to faith or deterring them from hostility, then the exemplary punishment of unbelievers is justified as part of jihad and carrying out punishments prescribed by Islamic law.
If Islamic State fighters are reading Ibn Taymiyya closely, we need to take that seriously. In this context, this video and others are a carefully calculated strategy of war, not simply mindless acts of violence. Whether they are in fact deterring hostility and inviting to faith is of course open to serious question – and whether Ibn Taymiyya is to be blamed for all of this is another question entirely.
No one needs Ibn Taymiyya to remind them that success in war requires pragmatic calculation – Islamic State simply cites him to add prestige to its effort. However, this scholar in particular can perhaps be helpful in reminding us all to avoid the trap of vengeance and a senseless cycle of retaliation.
This article was originally published on The Conversation.
By Jon Hoover, University of Nottingham
Read the original article.
NBC News is investigating primetime anchor Brian Williams following his admission that his story about getting shot down in a military helicopter was fake, Politico reported.
NBC News President Deborah Turness informed staff members of the probe in a memo sent on Friday.
"Yesterday, Brian and I spoke to the Nightly News team," Turness' memo stated. "And this morning at the Editorial Exchange, we both addressed the wider group. Brian apologized once again, and specifically expressed how sorry he is for the impact this has had on all of you and on this proud organization."
USA Today reported that the head of NBC News' investigative unit, Richard Esposito, is leading what Turness described as "a team dedicated to gathering the facts to help us make sense of all that has transpired."
On Wednesday, Williams apologized and recanted after being questioned over his story about riding in a Chinook helicopter that was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) while flying over Iraq in 2003.
He also issued an on-air apology, saying he "made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago," and that it was actually another helicopter on the same mission that sustained fire, but CNN reported that that account has also been called into question.
The New Orleans Advocate reported that Williams is also facing increased scrutiny over his story that he saw a body float by him in the city's French Quarter following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
"When you look out of your hotel window in the French Quarter and watch a man float by face down, when you see bodies that you last saw in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, and swore to yourself that you would never see in your country," he said in an interview a year later.
Other reports noted that the area was devoid of the flooding that plagued other parts of the city. However, according to the Advocate, photographs and other accounts from that time do show significant flooding around the Ritz-Carlton, where Williams stayed.
A majority of US-based investigative journalists believe the government is monitoring their phone calls, emails or other online communications, a survey showed Thursday.
The survey of 671 journalists by the Pew Research Center found 64 percent feel they are under US government surveillance.
An even larger percentage -- 71 percent -- among those who follow national security, foreign affairs or the federal government said they suspected they are being watched.
The survey by Pew along with the Columbia University Tow Center for Digital Journalism polled members of Investigative Reporters and Editors, a nonprofit organization that includes reporters, producers and editors, from December 3-28.
The news comes amid concerns that the US government is targeting reporters in a crackdown on national security leaks, and revelations that the FBI impersonated an Associated Press journalist as part of a bomb threat investigation.
In the Pew survey, half of the journalists said their employer is not doing enough to protect them and their sources from surveillance and hacking.
More than half said they received no formal training or instruction on electronic security issues.
Fourteen percent of those surveyed said their concerns have kept them from pursuing a story or reaching out to a particular source in the past 12 months, or have led them to consider leaving investigative journalism.
But 49 percent said they have at least somewhat changed the way they store or share sensitive documents, and 29 percent said they have taken extra security precautions in communications with other reporters, editors or producers.
"Overall, these data paint a complex picture in which investigative journalists on the whole feel vulnerable to surveillance and hacking, but not to the degree that most are changing their journalistic practices dramatically or investing energy into figuring out how to do so," Pew researchers wrote.
"And nearly all of those surveyed (97 percent) say that for today's journalists, the benefits of digital communication like email and cellphones outweigh the risks."
The margin of error for the survey was estimated at 3.8 percentage points.
Amy Pascal will step down as co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment after hackers angry about a movie she championed mocking North Korea's dictator exposed a raft of embarrassing emails between Pascal and other Hollywood figures.
One of the most powerful women executives in Hollywood, Pascal had kept a low profile since her emails were leaked by hackers and widely reported by media, particularly one in which she made racially insensitive remarks about President Barack Obama's taste in film.
Sony Pictures said Pascal will step down from her current post in May to launch her own production venture on the studio lot with its financial backing.
Sony Pictures Chief Executive and Chairman Michael Lynton told Reuters that the emails leaked late last year played no role in his and Pascal's decision not to renew her contract in March 2015.
The entertainment arm of Sony Corp was victim of the most destructive cyberattack on a private company on U.S. soil.
The U.S. government has blamed the hack on North Korea after the reclusive nation was angered by a Sony comedy The Interview, which depicts the fictional assassination of leader Kim Jong Un.
Pascal had greenlighted the movie, which opened in limited release after the studio reversed a decision, condemned by Obama, to cancel its theatrical release.
Having her emails laid out for all of Hollywood to see appeared to be a big blow to the 56-year-old studio boss known for her good relationships with actors and her backing of edgy films like Zero Dark Thirty and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
DEFENDERS OF PASCAL
In an email exchange between Pascal and producer Scott Rudin that was reported by website Gawker, Rudin called famed actress Angelina Jolie a "minimally talented spoiled brat" because of her demands during a remake of Cleopatra. Jolie has not responded publicly to the remarks since the email exchange was disclosed.
In another email, Pascal joked about President Barack Obama's race and his taste in movies. Pascal subsequently issued a public apology for "insensitive and inappropriate" emails, and met with civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton, who did not call for her to step down.
Several celebrities also came to her defense, arguing that no one should have their private emails picked over in public.
"I would hope that we would not stand in such harsh judgment in a moment of time when someone is hacked in their private conversations," media mogul Oprah Winfrey told CNN when asked about the remarks about Obama.
Pascal, who joined Sony's Columbia Pictures in 1988, said she and Lynton had been discussing her transition to producer for "quite some time."
"As the slate for the next 2 years has come together, it felt like the right time to transition into this new role," Pascal said in a statement from the company, adding "I am leaving the studio in great hands."
Sony did not immediately disclose who would be filling her post. But Sony employees have said one possible successor could be Michael De Luca, the producer of The Social Network and the upcoming Fifty Shades of Grey, who was hired in 2013 as president of production at Sony's Columbia Pictures unit.
Lynton and Pascal have endured a tough few years, from an activist investor's challenge to their leadership to job cuts after a few notable bombs like White House Down and After Earth.
Lynton told Reuters last month that the costs of the hacking episode - which crippled the computer network for months - would be amply covered by insurance and that there were no more restructuring plans for the studio.
Lynton said in that interview that a major challenge would be reestablishing trust in the company and Hollywood after sensitive information like salaries and private emails were posted online.
"I am very confident we can return to normal, but I think that level of transparency on some of those issues creates trust issues," he said.
Pascal's new production venture will focus on film, television and theater, the studio said. As part of a four-year agreement, Sony Pictures will finance Pascal's venture and retain distribution rights to films financed.
(Reporting by Mary Milliken and Lisa Richwine; Additional reporting by Mary Milliken; editing by Christian Plumb)
A recent poll found that the bulk of Iowa Republicans agree with former Republican Arkansas governor and possible 2016 hopeful Mike Huckabee, who said that pop-star Beyoncé's music is "mental poison."
AllHipHop.com reported on a Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll which found that while members of the Iowa GOP may agree with Huckabee about Beyoncé's music, they feel that the Fox News personality went too far in saying that President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama are bad parents for allowing their daughters to listen to the "Flawless" singer.
The first poll question asked, "In his recently published book, Mike Huckabee criticized the singer Beyoncé, calling her ‘mental poison.’ Do you think Huckabee is mostly right about Beyonce or did he go too far?”
Respondents -- who all said that they definitely or probably will attend the 2016 Iowa Republican caucuses -- agreed with Huckabee's statements regarding the Grammy-nominated performer at a rate of 40 percent. Thirty-eight percent of respondents felt that calling Beyoncé "mental poison" was going too far. Another 22 percent said they were unsure as to whether they should agree or not.
Earlier this year, Huckabee said in an interview with People magazine that he questions the Obamas' judgment as parents.
"I don’t understand how on one hand they can be such doting parents and so careful about the intake of everything -- how much broccoli they eat and where they go to school," Huckabee said, "and yet they don’t see anything that might not be suitable" about exposing their children to Beyoncé's work.
Among respondents, 60 percent said that Huckabee's statements went "too far." Twenty-three percent said that the former governor was mostly right to criticize the First family, while 16 percent said they weren't sure.
Huckabee's own son, David Huckabee, was fired from his job as a camp counselor at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, Arkansas when it came to light that the younger Huckabee participated in the torture and killing of a stray dog at a Boy Scout camp in 1998, while Huckabee was still in office.
Then-17-year-old David Huckabee and a friend admitted that they had tortured and strangled the animal to death. No charges were ever filed.
The news that the 88-year-old To Kill a Mockingbird author is to publish her second novel had sparked mounting concern about her level of involvement
Harper Lee’s international rights agent has said that the 88-year-old author was in “great spirits and increasingly excited at the prospect of [her second] novel finally seeing the light of day” when he saw her in January, responding to mounting concerns over the publication of Go Set a Watchman this summer.
The news that Lee would be following up her beloved 1960 debut To Kill a Mockingbird with a second novel, featuring her child heroine Scout as an adult, took the literary world by storm on Tuesday. Lee, her publishers announced, wrote Go Set a Watchman in the 1950s, before To Kill a Mockingbird, but was advised by her editor to focus on the flashbacks it contained to Scout’s childhood. So she laid it aside and wrote the novel which would go on to sell 40m copies around the world, and Go Set a Watchman was apparently only recently rediscovered in a “secure location” by Lee’s lawyer Tonja Carter.
The announcement included a statement attributed to Lee, that she “ hadn’t realized [the novel] had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it. After much thought and hesitation I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication.”
It was initially greeted with an outpouring of excitement, but questions soon began to be raised over the timing of the discovery, shortly after the death of Lee’s sister Alice Lee, and about the degree of Harper Lee’s own involvement in the deal.
“Alice Lee was about 12 years her sister’s senior, and she was Harper Lee’s buffer against the publicity-hungry world,” said Charles Shields, author of a biography of Lee, on Wednesday. “Alice advised Harper about financial matters, contracts, rights, and the rest of it. I can’t think it’s just coincidence that two months after Alice’s death, this 60-year-old manuscript is suddenly available for publication. Understanding the relationship between the sisters as I do, I doubt whether Alice would have allowed this project to go forward.”
After all, he added, the book “was written before Harper had the benefit of a strong, experienced editor at her eventual publisher”.
“Consider that To Kill a Mockingbird went through several complete drafts,” he said. “Although my fingers are crossed, I suspect Go Set a Watchman will show signs of what it is: a first attempt at novel-writing by a young, inexperienced author.”
Shields said it “wouldn’t be appropriate” to comment about Lee’s mental state, “but it’s well-known that she’s blind, she had a serious stroke several years ago, and in the past two years, her legal problems have been in the news several times after decades of silence. This indicates, I think, an elderly woman who’s getting poor advice.”
The novelist Philip Hensher also raised questions about the deal. “For fifty years she’s maintained the position that she’d said what she wanted to, with that one, fantastic, novel, and that she didn’t want to publish anything else. So why has she changed her mind, and has she changed her mind? … What I would very much like to see is some sort of accurate account of Harper Lee’s capacity to give consent, that doesn’t come from the publisher just saying she is in fantastic health, even though they haven’t seen her.”
In an interview with Vulture yesterday Lee’s US editor told the site that “I think we do all our dealing through her lawyer, Tonja. It’s easier for the lawyer to go see her in the nursing home and say HarperCollins would like to do this and do that and get her permission. That’s the only reason nobody’s in touch with her. I’m told it’s very difficult to talk to her.”
But Lee’s international rights agent, Andrew Nurnberg, who negotiated the deal for Go Set a Watchman to be published by Penguin Random House in the UK, described the novelist as “feisty and funny” when he met her recently.
“There will inevitably be speculation regarding Harper Lee as she has lived a very private life,” he said Wednesday via email. “She was genuinely surprised at the discovery of the manuscript but delighted by the suggestion to publish what she considers to be the ‘parent’ to Mockingbird. I met with her last autumn and again over two days in January; she was in great spirits and increasingly excited at the prospect of this novel finally seeing the light of day.”
Nurnberg added that Lee had just started reading AN Wilson’s Victoria. The novelist’s UK publisher, Penguin Random House, also moved to put concerns to rest. “Harper Lee is in good health and not only has she approved publication but she is excited to see the book re-emerge after so many years,” said its publicity director, Charlotte Bush.
And in Monroeville, Alabama, where the novelist now lives in an assisted-living facility, the historian Wayne Flynt dismissed suggestions that Lee might not have wanted the book to be published, according to local website AL.com .
“As late as yesterday, she was quite lucid, because I was there talking with her,” he told the site. “I don’t think anyone would have done this without Nelle’s full knowledge and consent.”
But Flynt said he “didn’t know a thing about” the existence of Go Set a Watchman until yesterday. “I don’t think any of her closest friends, and I know most of them, knew about it either,” he told AL.com. “She will tell a lot of stories, about Truman Capote and Gregory Peck and Veronique Peck. But as for anything about her private life and publishing, not a word.”
Flynt added that he had been discussing the presence of To Kill a Mockingbird on Sunday’s list of bestselling books in USA Today with Lee. “She said, ‘What? I can’t believe that!’,” the historian said.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2015
Guitarist Tim Farriss from Australian rock band INXS has undergone surgery after his finger was severed, his record label said on Thursday, raising fears he may never play again.
Farriss' left hand was injured and the ring finger severed by an electric anchor winch while working on a boat in Sydney late last month.
"The accident has caused permanent damage to Tim's left hand and one of his fingers has been severed," Petrol Records said in a statement.
"He has undergone two extensive operations to reattach his finger. Tim is now at home undergoing further treatment to assist with his recovery."
In an e-mail to his bandmates, reported by the Sydney Daily Telegraph, Farriss said: "It was horrific. I don't know if I will be able to play properly again."
INXS were one of the world's biggest acts throughout the late 1980s and early '90s, selling more than 30 million records and playing to packed stadiums across the globe.
But the suicide of original frontman Michael Hutchence in 1997 hit them hard.
Since then they have hired several other singers and performed with the likes of Terence Trent D'Arby and Australian rocker Jimmy Barnes, but they were never able to revisit their early success.
INXS announced their retirement in 2012 but enjoyed a renewed wave of popularity fuelled by the screening of the "Never Tear Us Apart" mini-series last year, which documented their rise.
Their "Very Best Of" album was the top-selling Australian record in 2014 and they had hinted at future live performances.
HBO hosts banquets in London over the Valentine’s Day weekend to mark the release of season four on DVD
Watching Game of Thrones can a tough task if you’re hungry – if watching painful deaths doesn’t put you off your food, there are mouthwatering feasts to sit through.
Now HBO has teamed up with caterers The Wandering Chef to create a Game of Thrones-themed pop-up restaurant in London.
Three “All Men Must Dine” banquets will take place from 13 to 15 February at the Andaz hotel in Liverpool Street.
HBO said: “Throughout the evening, guests will sample the finest delicacies Westeros has to offer over multiple courses, accompanied by a carefully selected drinks menu of cocktails fit for a King.”
It revealed that one dish on offer would be “The Lies of Tyrion Lannister and his Proclaimed Innocence”, or poached veal tongue with beetroot, horseradish and Oldtown Mustard”.
Fans of the show can go to the HBO website to win a chance to take part in the event.
It is taking place to promote the release of Game of Thrones season four on DVD and Blu-ray; season five starts on Sky Atlantic on 13 April.
Monkey hopes the fare is more wholesome than in the series – just look at King Joffrey.
NBC Nightly News host Brian Williams apologized and recanted his story about being in a U.S. military helicopter as it was forced to land under fire in Iraq 12 years ago, Stars & Stripes reported.
"You are absolutely right and I was wrong," Williams wrote on his Facebook page. "In fact, I spent much of the weekend thinking I'd gone crazy."
Politico reported that Williams has said for years that he was aboard a Chinook helicopter with members of the 159th Aviation Regiment when it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) during a March 2003 mission.
He revisited the story last Friday while reporting on a tribute he prepared for Command Sgt. Major Tim Terpack during a New York Rangers game.
"Our traveling NBC News team was rescued, surrounded and kept alive by an armor mechanized platoon from the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry," Williams said.
In fact, the helicopter Williams and his camera crew rode that day did not encounter any fire. The discrepancy was brought to light on his Facebook page by Lance Reynolds, who served as a flight engineer on the Chinook that actually was hit by the RPG and forced to land at a U.S. base west of Baghdad.
"Sorry dude, I don't remember you being on my aircraft," Reynolds wrote to Williams. "I do remember you walking up about an hour after we had landed to ask me what had happened. Then I remember you guys taking back off in a different flight of Chinooks from another unit and heading to Kuwait to report your 'war story' to the Nightly News. The whole time we were still stuck in Iraq trying to repair the aircraft and pulling our own Security."
"Because I have no desire to fictionalize my experience (we all saw it happened the first time) and no need to dramatize events as they actually happened, I think the constant viewing of the video showing us inspecting the impact area — and the fog of memory over 12 years — made me conflate the two, and I apologize," Williams stated in his response.
His desire to honor Terpak's service, Williams added, made him "switch aircraft."
"Nobody's trying to steal anyone's valor," he wrote. "Quite the contrary: I was and remain a civilian journalist covering the stories of those who volunteered for duty. This was simply an attempt to thank Tim, our military and Veterans everywhere — those who have served while I did not."
According to Stars & Stripes, NBC has reported the false story since March 2003, which annoyed several service members on the mission, including Mike O'Keeffe, who was a door gunner on the helicopter that was damaged.
"Over the years it faded," O'Keefe said. "Then to see it last week it was, I can't believe he is still telling this false narrative."
Watch Williams' mistaken report, as aired last Friday, below.
Update: Williams made an on-air correction on Wednesday, calling the false story "a bungled attempt" to pay tribute to military members. His statement can be seen below.
The granddaughter of Trinity Broadcasting Network founder Paul Crouch Sr. sued the network accusing a top official of threatening her and her husband's lives after allegedly firing them for not helping officials misuse around $100 million in charitable donations, the Christian Post reported.
The suit, filed by Brittany Koper and her husband Michael late last week, accuses the company of firing them after TBN founder Paul Crouch Sr. was hospitalized in September 2011. It also details an alleged encounter between Brittany Koper -- who had just been named the company's treasurer, director of finance and chief financial officer less than three months earlier -- and senior vice president Matthew Crouch, who is both her uncle and Paul Crouch Sr.'s son.
Matthew Crouch, the suit said, "began tapping the firearm he had brought to the meeting and asked [Koper] what she thought would happen when she wrote a memo to the board critical of [his] financial improprieties."
Koper also accused the company of expecting her to carry out a "systemic diversion" of the money to network officials' personal accounts, and of promoting her out of a desire to have someone "within the family" execute those orders.
The network's general counsel, John Kasoria, was accused of being in charge of Redemption Strategies, a company Koper said was solely devoted to "maliciously prosecuting, harassing, and intimidating" her and her husband. Michael Koper was listed in the suit as TBN's vice president of media services and corporate secretary before his firing.
When the Kopers brought their concerns over the alleged financial impropriety, the suit stated, Kasoria told them that as "accomplices," they would not be allowed to inform outside agencies of the issue. Any attempt to take information to prosecutors, Kasoria allegedly said, would lead to the company arresting them for "theft."
Paul Crouch Sr., who founded the network in 1973, died in November 2013. But he and his son can be seen threatening people who oppose TBN in a clip from a 2012 broadcast.
"You know what's funny dad? There have been a few attempts in the TBN history to upset TBN, to stop TBN," Matthew Crouch says. "There have been a few fools in the 38, 39-year history -- coming up on 40 years -- and you know what? Any attempt at stopping TBN, they have no idea who they are actually pushing into the corner. You and mom get pushed in the corner, God help you. That's a lesson I've learned from you. Seriously."
"God help anyone who would try to get in the way of TBN, which was God's plan," the elder Crouch responds. "I have attended the funeral of at least two people who tried."
OC Register reported last November that another granddaughter of the network's founder, 21-year-old Carra Crouch, filed her own suit against TBN, saying network officials covered up her rape at the hands of a longtime male employee when she was 13 years old.
According to Carra Crouch, the company fired her attacker, while Casoria reached an agreement with the 30-year-old man in which he would not file for unemployment or workers' compensation in exchange for not pursuing legal action against him. However, the suit stated, the company also failed to address her trauma following the incident.
"I feel that nobody took me to the police," she stated in a deposition. "And nobody took me to a doctor, because they were afraid of bringing down TBN. I think now I'm realizing that I never got closure. I never got justice. Everybody just kind of swept it under the rug, never talked about it again. And I was left with all these feelings that I didn't know how to deal with."
The footage of the Crouch's discussion, as posted online, can be seen below.
The Kopers' lawsuit can be read in in its entirety below.
Brittany and Michael Koper lawsuit Against TBN
[h/t Right Wing Watch]
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