Audit: Sexual assault incidents within VA system underreported

A new report claims nearly two-thirds of the 67 rape allegations were not reported, as required by VA regulations.GAO report says many incidents not properly handledUnderstaffing, fuzzy expectations, poor oversight are blamedHouse committee chairman says report left him "aghast"House to hold hearing Monday

Washington (CNN) -- Sexual assault incidents within the Veterans Affairs system are not being reported up the chain, a new government audit released Tuesday found.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, reported that of nearly 300 sexual assault incidents reported to VA Police from January 2007 through July 2010, "many" were not reported to VA leadership officials and the VA Inspector General's Office.

The GAO report uses the term sexual assault incident to refer to "suspected, alleged, attempted, or confirmed cases of sexual assault."

The 284 cases of sexual assault included rape, inappropriate touching, forceful medical examinations, forced or inappropriate oral sex, and other types of sexual assault incidents.

"When I first read this report, I was aghast," said Rep. Jeff Miller, chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. "It reminded me of a 1950s prison system -- lawlessness, lack of security and reporting, and outright disregard for human dignity."

The House committee has scheduled a hearing on the matter for Monday.

The GAO says the VA agreed with most of its findings.

Nearly two-thirds of the 67 rape allegations in VA facilities were not reported to the VA Inspector General's Office, as required by VA regulation, according to the report.

Both men and women were victims of the assaults. The victims and attackers ranged from employees to patients to those without affiliation to the VA.

"Not all sexual assault incidents reported to VA Police are substantiated," the GAO report said, citing reasons such as an assault did not actually take place, the victim chose not to pursue the case or there was insufficient evidence to substantiate the case.

The investigators say underreporting is due to a lack of guidance on what constitutes a sexual assault, unclear expectations on what incidents should be reported and insufficient oversight by the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), which oversees VA health facilities.

The VHA does not have a system to track and trend sexual assaults over time, according to the report, and therefore "cannot identify and make changes to serious problems that jeopardize the safety of veterans in their medical facilities."

The report also found that the VA has not taken the proper precautions to prevent sexual assaults in its medical facilities. Among the findings: Investigators report "poor monitoring of surveillance cameras, alarm system malfunctions, and the failure of alarms to alert both VA police and clinical staff when triggered." Officials at many of the locations the GAO visited said the VA Police were also understaffed.

"Patient and employee safety and security are paramount at the VA," said VA press secretary Josh Taylor. "We take all allegations seriously and investigate them thoroughly."

The VA says it's in process of reviewing the GAO's recommendations and taking steps to improve reporting of allegations and to provide more secure facilities.

"The bottom line is that we have a responsibility to protect those veterans in our care, as they have protected our nation, and we will continue to strengthen our facilities to ensure that our veterans receive high-quality medical care in safe, secure facilities," Taylor said.

The investigation was launched at the request of the House Veterans Affairs Committee due to changing demographics of patients treated by the VA.

The VA has developed initiatives to attract specific veteran populations to use its services, including women, young veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, and veterans facing legal issues or those already incarcerated, the report said.

The VA operates the largest integrated health care system in the country, with 153 hospitals and about 700 community-based clinics.

CNN

Egyptian exec accused of hotel sexual assault is arraigned

New York (CNN) -- An Egyptian executive accused of sexually abusing an employee at a luxury hotel in New York was arraigned late Tuesday night.

A judge set bail for Mahmoud Abdel-Salam Omar at $50,000 and the defendant was ordered to surrender all travel documents.

The case has been adjourned until Friday to give Omar time to hire a private lawyer, the New York County District Attorney's Office said.

Omar was represented by a court-appointed lawyer at the arraignment. CNN was unable to reach her afterward for comment.

Omar, the chairman of a salt company who once headed an Egyptian bank, is charged with sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment, forcible touching and harassment, police said.

The alleged incident took place at the Pierre Hotel on May 29 -- two weeks and a day after Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, was accused of sexually assaulting and attempting to rape a housekeeping employee at another swank New York hotel.

Strauss-Kahn's attorneys deny the allegations, and he has since stepped down from the IMF to focus on his defense.

Omar, 74, did not immediately make a public statement.

The accuser told police the alleged attack took place when she went to Omar's room to drop off tissues he had requested. Authorities did not release additional details.

Omar is chairman of El-Mex Salines Company.

On its website, the company describes itself as a subsidiary of Chemical Industries Holding Company, a chemical production company. It is "one of the oldest international companies in (the) salt industry," the website says.

A spokesman for El-Mex Salines said Omar was head of the Bank of Alexandria 15 years ago.

El-Mex Salines had no immediate comment on the arrest.

The Bank of Alexandria was established in 1957 as an Egyptian joint stock company, according to its website. It was privatized in 2006.

CNN's Jason Kessler and Mary Snow contributed to this report.

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NYPD: Another financial figure accused of hotel sexual assault

New York (CNN) -- The chairman of a salt company who once headed an Egyptian bank was arrested Monday in New York, accused of sexually abusing an employee at a luxury hotel.

Mahmoud Abdel-Salam Omar is charged with sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment, forcible touching and harassment, according to the New York Police Department.

The alleged incident took place Sunday -- a little more than two weeks after Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then chief of the International Monetary Fund, was accused of sexually assaulting and attempting to rape a housekeeping employee at another swank New York hotel. Strauss-Kahn's attorneys deny the allegations, and he has since stepped down from the IMF to focus on his defense.

Attorneys for ex-IMF chief say police leaks have tainted trial

Omar, 74, did not immediately make a public statement.

The New York Police Department said it was informed Monday of an incident at the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan. Police came to the hotel, where the alleged victim told them that at about 6 p.m. Sunday she went to Omar's room to drop off tissues he had requested. "Once inside the room the victim was sexually abused," police said.

A spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said prosecutors would not release any information until after Omar's arraignment, which could take place Tuesday.

The Pierre Hotel released a statement saying, "The Pierre's priority is the safety of our guests and staff. We take all complaints very seriously and investigate thoroughly. This incident has been formally reported to the New York Police Department and is under investigation. And we will fully comply with the investigation as requested."

Omar is chairman of El-Mex Salines Co. On its website, the firm describes itself as a subsidiary of Chemical Industries Holding Co., a chemical production company. It is "one of the oldest international companies in (the) salt industry," the website says.

A spokesman for El-Mex Salines said that Omar was head of the Bank of Alexandria 15 years ago.

El-Mex Salines had no immediate comment on the arrest.

The Bank of Alexandria was established in 1957 as an Egyptian joint stock company, according to its website. It was privatized in 2006.

CNN

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CBS reporter Lara Logan describes sexual attacks

WASHINGTON — Two months after a brutal attack during the protests in Cairo, CBS reporter Lara Logan says "there was no doubt in my mind that I was in the process of dying." And despite the horrific ordeal, Logan plans to return to reporting in trouble spots.

 Journalist Lara Logan said she hopes her story will help other victims of sexual assault.

"I am so much stronger," she says in a release from CBS News, marking her first public statements since the repeated sexual attacks by a mob in Cairo. Logan, who has returned to work, will tell her story on CBS' 60 Minutes this Sunday.

She hopes her story will help others who have been sexually assaulted, especially other female journalists.

On Feb. 11, Logan was in Cairo covering the city's celebration of the regime change in Egypt. She was conducting interviews in Tahrir Square when she became separated from her crew and was sexually and physically assaulted by a mob.

"I thought not only am I going to die, but it's going to be just a torturous death that's going to go on forever," Logan said. In an interview with The New York Times, she said her clothes were "torn to pieces," and that "for an extended period of time, they raped me with their hands."

A group of Egyptian women and soldiers rescued her.

Logan has spent much time covering conflicts, including Iraq and Afghanistan, which are often hostile environments for Western women.

"Lara Logan is an extremely talented, courageous journalist," says Alicia Shepard, an ombudsman at NPR. "Her gender should have nothing to do with whether she should cover a war. It should be up to Lara Logan."

"Covering war, conflict and political upheaval all entails possible physical danger, and we have to be more careful," says Hun Shik Kim, who covered Iraq and now teaches at the University of Colorado. "We used to be considered neutral observers, but the level of hostility toward foreign journalists is quite high."

Logan said she does not intend to give any more interviews about the attack.

"I don't want this to define me," she told the Times.

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Yale announces new steps amid sexual harassment probe

Yale University has created a panel to look at the school's sexual harassment policies in the wake of a federal probe. STORY HIGHLIGHTSYale's president taps elite graduates to look at the school's sexual harassment policiesTop school administrators are also meeting with students Authorities are probing a possible "sexually hostile environment," the provost saysRELATED TOPICSYale UniversitySexual Harassment (CNN) -- The president of Yale University announced new steps Friday in the wake of a federal sexual harassment probe at the school, including creating an external committee of former graduates and facilitating informal chats between administrators and students.

The school is accused of providing an insufficient process for addressing the federal gender-equity law, Title IX, which may have resulted in "the denial of equal opportunity to education for numerous university students," U.S. Department of Education spokesman Jim Bradshaw has said.

In an email Friday, Yale President Richard Levin said administrators and others at the New Haven, Connecticut, university will cooperate with the federal education department's Office of Civil Rights.

The university will take other immediate measures distinct from that investigation, the email said.

They include the creation of an advisory committee, which has been charged with offering advice on how sexual harassment, violence or misconduct may be more effectively combated at Yale," Levin said.

"The committee will spend time listening to members of our community about the situation as they live it and will make its own assessments," the president wrote, saying the group's recommendations will be submitted to him next fall and eventually will be made public.

The group will be chaired by Margaret Marshall, the former chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court.

Other members, including former U.S. Solicitor General Seth Waxman, the University of Chicago's Dean of Students Kimberly Goff-Crews and Elizabeth Smiley, a San Francisco consultant. All were appointed by Levin, and all are Yale graduates.

This move comes a week after University Provost Peter Salovey announced that an internal committee -- consisting of student, faculty and administrative members -- would meet to build "upon the existing processes of the college and each of the schools," and will address "allegations of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct of every kind."

That committee is to start up on July 1.

"We believe that this streamlining will make it simpler for students and faculty to initiate and pursue any complaint," Salovey said in an email sent to Yale faculty and students.

Federal investigators are looking into a complaint that claims university policies allowed a "sexually hostile environment" to exist on campus, Salovey has said.

The complaint blames Yale for failing to adequately respond to alleged incidents of harassment, according to Bradshaw.

The federal investigation follows a controversial YouTube video released in October that apparently showed new recruits of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity repeating chants encouraging rape as they marched through campus.

The board of directors of Delta Kappa Epsilon issued a statement saying the international fraternity strongly condemns the actions of the Yale chapter and acknowledges that the sentiments expressed were offensive.

The complaint also follows reports of a party in which undergraduate students were allegedly asked to strip naked.

While Levin did not address any specific incident in his message, he did detail other actions -- in addition to setting up the second committee -- being taken before the school year ends in the coming weeks.

That includes top administrators, including Salovey and several deans, engaging students in the school's dining halls for "a conversation about the campus climate and our policies governing sexual misconduct." Levin said these informal meetings are taking place at his request, facilitated by members of the school's Women's Center.

"The deepest values of our institution compel us to take very seriously the issues raised by the complaint," Levin said.

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2 Chicago police officers face sexual assault investigation

Two Chicago police officers are accused of playing strip poker and sexually assaulting a 22-year-old woman. STORY HIGHLIGHTSChicago police suspend officers pending investigationChicago TV station WLS reports officers assaulted a 22-year-old womanThe station cites a police report that states woman initially agreed to sex and strip pokerThe woman later ran from her apartment screaming for help, WLS reportsRELATED TOPICSChicagoCriminal InvestigationsRead more about this story from CNN affiliate WLS.

(CNN) -- Two Chicago police officers are under investigation for alleged sexual assault and have been "relieved of their police powers," according to a statement released Thursday by the city's police department.

Chicago's top law enforcement officer on Thursday called their actions "inappropriate."

"You can't justify it," Chicago Police Superintendent Terry Hillard said Thursday. "What they did, allegedly have done, was inappropriate and was against the law."

Investigators refused to provide further details about the incident. However, CNN affiliate WLS-TV reported Thursday that the alleged attack on a 22-year-old woman took place Wednesday morning after she accepted a ride home from the on-duty officers.

WLS attributed the information to a police report on the incident.

According to the report cited by WLS, the woman initially did not reject sexual advances from the officers. The report stated that the woman had sex with one of the officers in the passenger seat of a department SUV.

The three later played strip poker at her apartment, according to the report cited by WLS. The woman told investigators she was too afraid at first to refuse sex with the officers, but later ran out of the apartment screaming for help, according to the report cited by WLS.

Chicago Police Chief of Detectives Tom Byrne told reporters that neither officer has been charged.

"At this point in time it is an active ongoing criminal investigation, but we also need to have the evidence worked up prior to any charging," Byrne said.

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