More than three dozen women have filed a lawsuit in New York against writer and director James Toback, accusing him of sexual abuse.
The lawsuit, filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan on Monday, comes after New York state last month instituted a one-year window for people to file lawsuits over sexual assault claims even if they took place decades ago, waiving statutes of limitations.
Accusations that Toback had engaged in sexual abuse going back years surfaced in late 2017, first reported by the Los Angeles Times as the #MeToo movement gained attention.
In 2018, Los Angeles prosecutors said the statutes of limitations had expired in five cases they reviewed, and they declined to bring criminal charges against Toback.
Information on attorneys or representatives for Toback was not available; he has denied the allegations made against him.
Fifteen of the women are named as plaintiffs in the New York suit, while another 23 are listed as Jane Does; in addition to Toback, the Harvard Club of New York City is also listed as a defendant, with some of the women saying they were abused there.
An email seeking comment was sent to the club.
Toback was nominated for an Oscar for writing 1991's "Bugsy," and his career in Hollywood has spanned more than 40 years.
South Korea fines Meta $15 million for illegally collecting information on Facebook users
South Korea's privacy watchdog on Tuesday fined social media company Meta 21.6 billion won ($15 million) for illegally collecting sensitive personal information from Facebook users, including data about their political views and sexual orientation, and sharing it with thousands of advertisers.
It was the latest in a series of penalties against Meta by South Korean authorities in recent years as they increase their scrutiny of how the company, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, handles private information.
Following a four-year investigation, South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission concluded that Meta unlawfully collected sensitive information about around 980,000 Facebook users, including their religion, political views and whether they were in same-sex unions, from July 2018 to March 2022.
It said the company shared the data with around 4,000 advertisers.
South Korea's privacy law provides strict protection for information related to personal beliefs, political views and sexual behavior, and bars companies from processing or using such data without the specific consent of the person involved.
The commission said Meta amassed sensitive information by analyzing the pages the Facebook users liked or the advertisements they clicked on.
The company categorized ads to identify users interested in themes such as specific religions, same-sex and transgender issues, and issues related to North Korean escapees, said Lee Eun Jung, a director at the commission who led the investigation on Meta.
"While Meta collected this sensitive information and used it for individualized services, they made only vague mentions of this use in their data policy and did not obtain specific consent," Lee said.
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