Graham Bowley

At a time of worsening relations, as evidence of Russian meddling in U.S. elections swelled, Butina, then a graduate student at American University, told him about a program at her school that introduces students to the riches of Russian history and culture, according to her notes of their conversation later found by the FBI.

The American woman who created the program, Susan Carmel, she noted, had even been given a medal of appreciation by President Vladimir Putin.

None of this surprised the ambassador. After all, he told Butina, the idea for the program had been hatched at his residence, also over breakfast, according to her notes.

During his nine years as ambassador, which ended in 2017, Kislyak spearheaded a number of efforts to use Russian culture as a diplomatic tool. He enlisted one oligarch to build a “Russian Lounge” inside the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and recruited help to rescue a financially troubled California state park on the site of a 19th-century Russian settlement.

But those efforts hardly matched what he helped to inspire at American University, a robust program at a respected U.S. college that celebrates Russia’s art and its shared history as a U.S. ally.

The program, the Carmel Institute of Russian Culture and History, is designed as a peacemaking initiative, and it has sponsored events that featured performances by well-known Russian artists, such as jazz musician Igor Butman and star pianist Denis Matsuev. Other events have focused on bridge-building topics, like Russian American cooperation in World War II and during the exploration of space.

Hundreds of people from a variety of circles attend the events. Many are geared to students, who are ferried to the Russian Embassy from six area colleges on buses and treated to evenings of food and Russian films. At some events, wine was served, students said, though that practice ended several years ago.

“What we are trying to do” with the program, Anton Fedyashin, the initiative’s then-executive director, said in 2012, “is to expose American students to Russia as a cultural superpower.”

But critics say the institute presents too favorable a perspective on Russia by focusing on the glories of its arts and history at a time of aggression in Ukraine and election meddling.

“The big question is,” said Hope Harrison, a Cold War scholar at George Washington University, “Is this yet another example of trying to expand Russian influence in the U.S.?”

The university has rejected such criticism, arguing that the institute is a tailored program that steers clear of contemporary political debate so as to promote dialogue and cultural appreciation free from current tensions.

“The worse the relationship is in politics, the more important it is to see the other side of the enemy,” said Eric Lohr, a university history professor who directs the institute.

He acknowledged that “we are not screening documentaries about Pussy Riot,” the Russian feminist punk rock group that often criticizes Russia’s president. “But we are not screening encomiums to Putin.”

The Carmel Institute, first called the Initiative for Russian Culture, was born in 2011, at a time when the Kremlin’s efforts to influence U.S. opinion were not as closely scrutinized as they are today. The Russian government has acknowledged a soft-power campaign to promote the country as a cultured, benevolent global force. Those efforts have been enhanced at times by the generosity of Russian oligarchs, acting independently or at the behest of the Kremlin, who have underwritten gifts to Western arts organizations or financed exhibitions and performances abroad.

In this case, the program inspired by the former ambassador exists at a college whose very name is laden with symbolism, one that has a history of training diplomats and is a close neighbor to Washington’s Embassy Row. More than 20,000 people have attended Carmel programs, according to the institute, which also pays for student trips to Russia, scholarships for study there and support for Russian exchange students in America. Its activities are sometimes mentioned in the Russian Embassy’s weekly newsletter alongside items about Putin’s latest remarks and other diplomatic news.

Alia Carlton, an American University political science student who has attended institute events, said she did not find the Carmel program biased. “The general message is open-mindedness and unity,” she said. “The only stuff I knew about Russia was all negative. I wanted to get outside my comfort zone.”

Other students, though, said they felt that institute events ignored current tensions to focus on a historic image of Russia and its culture.

Jessie Drago, an American University graduate, said that, while she found the university’s history classes balanced, she stayed away from the institute because of its close relationship with the Russian Embassy.

“It did seem like the Carmel Institute was making huge efforts to give Russia a better reputation with the students,” she said, calling the program “an effort to shed the Cold War ‘enemy’ idea.”

Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, an international relations research group, said it worried him that a program at a U.S. university had become so involved with the Russian Embassy and was presenting content to students that was, in his opinion, one-sided.

The university countered such criticism in a statement pointing to the film “Stilyagi,” or “Hipsters,” shown at the embassy, as evidence of evenhandedness. It depicts the nonconformist, underground jazz scene in 1950s Moscow and, the statement said, “illustrated the dangers faced from being counterculture in Soviet Russia.”

Michael S. Roth, president of Wesleyan University, who has published a book about free speech on college campuses, said students are able to sort through a one-sided presentation as long as a university places it in context and presents alternative viewpoints.

“If this is part of an intellectually diverse approach to Russian culture, then it’s helpful,” said Roth, who was not aware of the Carmel program, “but if it is not, if it is the most dominant note about Russian culture at the university, then that’s a problem.”

University officials say the broader academic curriculum — the courses it offers, the speakers it hosts, the teachers it hires — presents a straightforward view of Russia, one that does not avoid negative impressions. Events and lectures elsewhere on campus, they said, had addressed topics like “the use of bots, trolls, fake news; the manipulation of the political process; and the role of foreign governments in the 2016 election and beyond.” They cited, for example, a 2018 graduate course on disinformation that discussed Russian election interference and “the evolving use of propaganda” by “international terrorist organizations and nation-states.” The university also provided an article written by Lohr that discussed Russia’s history of interventions in foreign elections.

The founder of the Institute, Carmel, a 67-year-old philanthropist who runs a commercial real estate firm, describes her cultural mission as one of bridge-building.

She declined to be interviewed, but she addressed questions in writing, taking issue with critics who describe the program as biased.

“The Institute is neither a think tank, policy institute, nor a political science course,” she wrote. “As such, most — if not all — of the films screened have dealt with Russian history from the Czarist era through the Soviet era, predating President Putin and the more current political issues.”

Carmel has acknowledged in the past that she was inspired to create the program after discussions with Kislyak, who was the institute’s honorary co-chairman for years. Asked to comment on Butina’s account, she instead said the program “was formed following multiple meetings at American University.”

Carmel’s philanthropy has included generous support of the Washington National Opera and several medical initiatives. In addition to the medal she received from Putin in Moscow in 2016, France awarded her the rank of Chevalier in its Légion d’Honneur in 2012.

Beyond the institute, Carmel has helped finance other events that celebrate Russian culture. She threw parties at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago in 2015 and 2016 that honored Valery Gergiev, the conductor of Russia’s celebrated Mariinsky orchestra, an ally of Putin and a supporter of his annexation of Crimea. The following year, she helped underwrite a concert at the National Cathedral, again showcasing Gergiev and billed as “A Concert for Unity.” American University students were invited; Kislyak’s successor as ambassador spoke; and the Russian media beamed home images of cultural cooperation.

Kislyak, who became ambassador in 2008, grew to be a popular Washington insider whose avuncular style helped build many relationships. During his last years in Washington, though, he developed into a more controversial figure as his meetings with Trump advisers became a subject of investigation. He returned to Moscow in July 2017.

But for years he attended Carmel events. He was on American’s campus, for example, in 2012 when a bust of Tolstoy, a gift by a Russian sculptor, was installed between buildings.

The Carmel Institute drew attention last year after the FBI’s arrest of Butina, a gun-rights activist from Russia who came to the United States to secure a master’s degree in international relations at American. She ultimately pleaded guilty to a charge of failing to register as a foreign agent while working to advance Russia’s interests by infiltrating U.S. political circles.

Butina, who says she never operated as a covert agent and simply wanted to better political relations, was released last month after serving most of her 18-month prison term. According to the writings found on her computer, she said she embraced cultural centers like the Carmel Institute for their potential to soften American public opinion toward Russia.

“Pro-Russian cultural centers for developing literature and music,” she wrote, “no doubt play an important role in preparing the background and developing informal communication.”

“It fit with her notion,” said Robert Driscoll, her lawyer, “that what builds relations, what brings people together is not abstract political negotiations, but people enjoying movies together, or they like art or guns or religion. That’s what builds bridges between people.”

A few days after her 2017 breakfast with Kislyak, Butina joined other American University students from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Azerbaijan on an institute trip to Gettysburg College, where they discussed Russian-American relations with students from the United States.

Her reaction to the trip was later included in an article that was posted on the Carmel Institute’s American University website. “It helped us to focus,” she said, “on similarities that unite us more than on the differences that divide us.”

After her arrest, though, someone took down a photo of the visit that included Butina and edited her comment out of the article.

This article originally appeared in

Has a U.S. College Given Russia Too Friendly a Platform?

WASHINGTON — In 2017, a year before Maria Butina was arrested on charges of acting as a foreign agent, she had breakfast with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Sergey I. Kislyak, at his residence in Washington.

“This evidence was used to strip Cosby of his presumption of innocence and to try to establish that Cosby had the propensity to sexually assault women,” his lawyers wrote in the appeal filed in Pennsylvania Superior Court. “This evidence never should have been admitted at trial.”

The lengthy appeal included several other complaints about the actions of the judge, Steven O’Neill, that the defense team had already indicated would be grounds for a challenge. Cosby, 81, was found guilty in 2018 in Montgomery County Court of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home outside Philadelphia in 2004. He is serving a three- to 10-year sentence in a Pennsylvania prison.

In the filing, Cosby’s lawyers, Kristen Weisenberger, Brian Perry and Sarah Kelly-Kilgore said the judge had wrongly ignored the testimony of a former district attorney who said he had promised never to prosecute Cosby. The team also questioned the judge’s decision to allow into evidence a deposition Cosby made in a lawsuit brought by Constand acknowledging he had obtained quaaludes to be used to incapacitate women so he could have sex with them, a statement that prosecutors portrayed as evidence of his willingness to do the same to Constand.

Legal experts have said that the strongest argument in Cosby’s defense is his challenge to O’Neill’s decision to allow the five additional accusers to testify.

In the appeal, his lawyers said he was denied a fair trial because the allegations made by the five other women were remote in time and did not share close similarities to the Constand case.

In an opinion published in May, O’Neill asserted that the testimony of those women was particularly relevant because of the “chilling similarities” in their accounts, which he said depicted a “signature” method of assaulting women.

Now that the full appeals brief has been filed, prosecutors have 30 days to respond to the Superior Court. Kate Delano, a spokeswoman for the Montgomery County district attorney’s office, declined to comment beyond confirming that prosecutors would file their response.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/arts/television/bill-cosby-new-trial.html" id="a14e2728-facc-3fba-ab99-107b9ae5386e">The New York Times</a>.

Cosby files formal appeal of sexual assault conviction

Bill Cosby on Tuesday filed a formal appeal to his sexual assault conviction, arguing that he had been improperly convicted last year when the judge presiding at his trial allowed into evidence the testimony of five women who, like the victim, said Cosby had drugged and sexually assaulted them.

Bunch, 66, will be the first historian and the first African-American to oversee the Smithsonian’s 19 museums and galleries, the National Zoological Park and research centers. He will take over June 16, the Smithsonian announced Tuesday.

Bunch, who began his career in 1978 at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum, said in an interview that, as the Smithsonians’ 14th secretary, he hoped to figure out how to make the institution “more effective in the digital space” so that it could reach a broader audience than those who might have the time to visit Washington.

“I want to help it transform America,” he said.

As founding director of the African-American museum, Bunch led a decadelong effort to create a space that would recognize the achievements of black Americans, as well as the horrors of slavery and the struggle for civil rights. It fittingly opened on the National Mall in September 2016 at a ceremony at which President Barack Obama spoke.

“Lonnie Bunch guided, from concept to completion, the complex effort to build the premier museum celebrating African American achievements,” John G. Roberts Jr., Smithsonian chancellor and chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, said in a statement. “I look forward to working with him as we approach the Smithsonian’s 175th anniversary, to increase its relevance and role as a beloved American institution and public trust.”

When Bunch joined the National Museum of African American History in 2005, he faced an uphill task: constructing a new museum from scratch, working with Congress to fund the museum, attracting big-name donors and building a collection from nothing.

The result was a new public museum at the heart of Washington’s cultural landscape designed by Tanzanian-born architect David Adjaye to evoke a crown motif from ancient Yoruban sculpture, or alternatively women’s hands lifted to the sky in prayer.

From the beginning, Bunch insisted he did not want to create a public space for a black audience only, but for all Americans. The African-American story, he said, was an American story, as central to the country’s narrative as any other, and understanding black history and culture is essential to understanding U.S. history and culture.

Bunch said that he is open to the changes a successor might make at the museum he founded, but that one thing should not change: the mission of its being a museum that perceives its audience as all Americans. “That is the most important of all that we have done,” he said.

On Tuesday, the Smithsonian said the distinctive museum he had helped bring into being had gathered a collection of 40,000 objects and attracted 4 million visitors since it opened.

Many of the objects gathered by Bunch’s team were treasures donated by ordinary people. It ran an “Antiques Roadshow”-style project in 15 cities that encouraged people to give heirlooms from their closets and attics.

He was appointed to the secretary position following a search by an 11-member committee led by David Rubenstein, chairman of the Smithsonian Board of Regents, and Steve Case, vice chairman.

Bunch replaces David J. Skorton, a cardiologist and former president of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who announced in December he was leaving his position to return to the world of health care and medicine as head of a nonprofit organization. He had served as secretary since July 2015.

Skorton had succeeded G. Wayne Clough, another former university president, who had led the Smithsonian for seven years.

During Skorton’s four-year tenure, he oversaw important milestones and the completion of a $1.88 billion capital campaign. He also was in charge of the Smithsonian’s strategic plan, which includes ambitions to reach a greater audience. But perhaps the Smithsonian’s highest-profile success during his tenure was the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Bunch has spent his career in museums. He was the president of the Chicago Historical Society and had also worked at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Bunch’s elevation to secretary is the first time in 74 years that a director of a Smithsonian member museum has been selected to lead the institution as a whole.

In a statement, Rubenstein called Bunch “is a deeply respected scholar, educator and leader.”

Case said that after “birthing a wildly successful startup within the Smithsonian,” Bunch had “a vision for driving cross-institutional collaboration to create a virtual Smithsonian that can reach everybody, everywhere.”

Bunch said it would be difficult to leave behind the museum that he had helped to create, especially since he had hired so many of the people on its staff. He said the search committee had approached him. “I was a happy guy,” he said, “with the best office in D.C.”

He said he would work to explain to staff on Tuesday just why he was leaving and how closely he thought their work, their accomplishments now relate to the new job ahead of him.

“I will tell them,” he said, “what they have done is they have modeled what is possible in museums in a place like the Smithsonian.”

This article originally appeared in <a id="27cadac3-b90e-35c7-a610-694be8895710" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/arts/design/lonnie-bunch-smithsonian.html">The New York Times</a>.

Lonnie G. Bunch III, the museum leader who opened the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture to critical applause and huge crowds, will serve as the next secretary of the entire Smithsonian, its most senior position.

Smithsonian turns to a visionary

It was Judge Steven T. O’Neill’s first full written explanation of the decisions he made during the trial and his first expanded response to a list of grievances about the judge’s actions that the defense team has cited as grounds for its appeal. His decision allows Cosby’s appeal to move forward to a higher court in Pennsylvania.

Cosby’s team cited 11 grounds upon which to challenge the decision-making that factored into the jury’s finding last year that the entertainer had drugged and sexually assaulted Andrea Constand at his home outside Philadelphia in 2004.

Among Cosby’s arguments was the contention that O’Neill had erred by allowing into evidence the testimony of five additional women who said they too had been intoxicated and sexually assaulted by Cosby.

In his 143-page opinion, O’Neill of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, rejected the reasoning on all 11 grounds, asserting that the testimony of the additional women was particularly relevant because of the “chilling similarities” in their accounts, which he said depicted a “signature” method of assaulting women.

Among the similarities, he cited, were observations that the women were all younger, physically fit and believed that Cosby was acting as their friend or mentor. The judge wrote that each of the women said she was maneuvered into a location he controlled, before being giving an intoxicant and then physically assaulted.

“In each instance, (he) met a substantially younger woman, gained her trust, invited her to a place where he was alone with her, provided her with a drink or drug, and sexually assaulted her once she was rendered incapacitated,” O’Neill wrote. “These chilling similarities rendered (their) testimony admissible.

“The defendant’s actions were so distinctive as to become a signature,” he wrote.

The prosecution had offered 19 other women as witnesses, and O’Neill said he had found all their accounts “relevant and admissible.” But he said he had allowed only five to testify because of the prejudicial risk of allowing too many other witnesses in a case focusing on what had happened to Constand.

A spokesman for Cosby, who is serving a three- to 10-year sentence in a Pennsylvania prison, said in a statement that the judge’s ruling continued to show his errors and his personal bias against Cosby.

“I’m sure that his brief will further support our claims, that Mr. Cosby was falsely convicted, but he will be vindicated, when his appeal is reviewed by the appellate judges,” the statement said.

O’Neill also rejected another argument raised by the defense lawyers, who said he had failed to properly credit what they described as a binding pledge to Cosby by a former district attorney, who testified that he had promised not to prosecute the entertainer when the case was first investigated in 2005.

Cosby was prosecuted by a subsequent district attorney in 2015.

O’Neill said he found the statements by the former district attorney, Bruce L. Castor, to be inconsistent. As he recounted the case in some detail, O’Neill wrote, “No nonprosecution agreement or promise was ever memorialized in writing, memorandum to investigative file, letter to counsel, or filed with any court.”

In addition, he rejected Cosby’s claim that the 12-year statute of limitations in the case had passed by the time charges were brought in December 2015, finding that Constand had consistently testified that the assault took place in 2004.

This article originally appeared in <a id="3ced1d55-aaba-3255-a8ee-295d0717b012" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/arts/bill-cosby-appeal.html">The New York Times</a>.

Judge in Bill Cosby case disputes grounds for appeal

In a long-awaited opinion released Tuesday, the Pennsylvania judge who presided over Bill Cosby’s sexual assault case rejected Cosby’s arguments that he had received an unfair trial.

Last week, Cosby filed a motion with the Pennsylvania Superior Court, which hears appeals, arguing that his efforts to challenge his conviction were being frustrated by the fact that the trial judge had yet to issue an opinion that explains his decisions during the case.

In a brief order, the Superior Court gave no explanation for its decision.

Cosby, 81, is now in a maximum-security state prison in Pennsylvania, where he is serving three to 10 years.

He was sentenced in September for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, in his home outside Philadelphia in 2004. He maintained his innocence and in December his lawyers filed papers with the Superior Court that challenged the way the trial judge in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, Steven T. O’Neill, handled parts of the case.

For example, the lawyers contend O’Neill wrongly ignored the testimony by a former district attorney who said he had promised never to prosecute Cosby and that he erred by allowing testimony from five other women who had accused Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting them.

While the Cosby appeal process will not move forward until O’Neill issues his opinion, known as a 1925(a) Opinion, several legal experts said the seven months that have passed since Cosby’s sentencing in September are not unusually long in a case of such complexity.

In a statement, Kevin R. Steele, Montgomery County district attorney, said, “Seemingly, the Superior Court did not need a Commonwealth response to the defense’s motion, which was fraught with inaccuracies, before yet again denying the defendant’s request for bail pending appeal.”

Cosby’s spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, said in a statement that the defense had anticipated that the bail request would be denied and that the primary motive in filing it was to highlight that O’Neill had yet to produce his opinion.

“We strongly feel that our Application for Bail Relief will force this egregious judge to do the right thing, write his 1925(a) Opinion, so that Mr. Cosby can move forward with his appeal,” the statement said.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/arts/television/court-rejects-bill-cosbys-request-for-bail-release.html" id="9ba0141b-dbbf-3bc8-a730-c8fa68cf973a">The New York Times</a>.

A Pennsylvania appeals court Monday rejected Bill Cosby’s request to be released on bail while he tries to overturn his conviction for sexual assault.

Court Rejects Bill Cosby's Request for Bail Release

Cosby is now in a maximum-security state prison in Pennsylvania, where he is serving three to 10 years.

“Mr. Cosby has been incarcerated for nearly seven months, yet review of his legally infirm and unsupported conviction by this Honorable Court is being delayed by the lower court, which has failed to file a timely opinion,” his lawyers wrote in a filing to the Pennsylvania Superior Court, which hears appeals.

Cosby, 81, was sentenced in September for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, in his home outside Philadelphia in 2004. He maintained his innocence and immediately said he would appeal.

In December, his lawyers filed papers with the Superior Court that challenged the way the trial judge in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, Steven T. O’Neill, handled parts of the case.

The lawyers, for example, say O’Neill wrongly ignored the testimony by a former district attorney who said he had promised never to prosecute Cosby and that he erred by allowing testimony from five other women who had accused Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting them.

“Bail is justified under the circumstances given Mr. Cosby’s advanced age and the strong likelihood that his conviction will not stand on appeal,” his lawyers, Brian W. Perry and Kristen L. Weisenberger, wrote in the latest request for bail.

In an Instagram post Wednesday that was attributed to Cosby, the entertainer characterized O’Neill as a racist who holds a grudge against him.

While the Cosby appeal process will not move forward until O’Neill issues his opinion, legal experts said the period of time that has elapsed since sentencing is by no means unusual in a case of such complexity.

“This was a long case,” said Dennis McAndrews, a Pennsylvania lawyer not connected to the Cosby case. “It’s fairly common for it to take at least this long to write up an opinion, especially where the issues are fairly complex and extensive.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/arts/television/bill-cosby-asks-for-bail.html" id="0ab1edd2-18d2-3b33-af73-80eeec0b370a">The New York Times</a>.

Bill Cosby appealed for his release on bail Wednesday, arguing that his efforts to overturn his conviction for sexual assault have been stymied by the trial judge’s delay in issuing an opinion that explains his decisions during the case.

Bill Cosby, Arguing His Appeal Is Being Delayed, Asks for Bail

Lynne M. Abraham, a lawyer and former Philadelphia district attorney, counseled Cosby to be patient. “He has forgotten who he is. He is now a defendant. He has to wait for the court,” she said.

She added: “If he thinks the trial court takes a long time, the appeals court sometimes doesn’t put an opinion out for a year or more.”

The announcement followed days of criticism that a prominent institution dedicated to nature and science would serve as a platform to recognize someone who has proposed environmental deregulation and opening more of the Amazon rainforest to mining and agribusiness.

The event was to have been held in May in the museum’s Hall of Ocean Life, a popular space for galas. The Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce, a nonprofit organization that promotes business and cultural ties between the United States and Brazil, had rented the space.

“With mutual respect for the work and goals of our individual organizations, we have jointly agreed that the museum is not the optimal location for the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce gala dinner,” the museum and the chamber said in a joint statement. “This traditional event will go forward at another location on the original date and time.”

The museum acted quickly after discovering this month that Bolsonaro would be receiving the Person of the Year award at the event. The roughly 1,000-person gala is an established, annual event, and has been held at the museum in prior years. Past recipients have included former President Bill Clinton and former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

Among those who pushed the museum to cancel the gala was Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said he found holding the event at an institution that accepts city funding “really troubling.” Some staff members also signed an open letter to the museum’s president, Ellen V. Futter, saying that the event was “in direct conflict with the values of the museum.”

At the end of last week the museum announced it was reviewing its decision to rent out its space for the gala. Backing out seemed inevitable when, over the weekend, the museum issued statements publicly thanking those who had raised concerns and saying that, “We want you to know that we understand and share your distress.”

Museum representatives did not expand on reasons for jointly agreeing to cancel the event. But in earlier statements the museum had said it was “deeply concerned about the stated policy aims of the current Brazilian administration.”

It is unclear where the gala, scheduled for May 14, will take place. No one at the Chamber of Commerce could be reached for comment. According to its website, Bolsonaro is being honored in “recognition of his strongly stated intention of fostering closer commercial and diplomatic ties between Brazil and the United States and his firm commitment to building a strong and durable partnership between the two nations.”

It is also unclear what sort of financial hit, if any, the museum took for canceling the gala. The museum declined to specify how much money it had received or anticipated receiving for renting the space.

The speed with which events unfolded was underlined by the fact that the chamber’s website continued Monday evening to list the museum as the location for the gala.

Outside social events can be lucrative for museums. But this latest outcry comes at a time when there are increasing questions about the kind of oversight museums should exercise over people and organizations who serve on their boards, give them money or, as in this case, rent their space.

Traditionally, museums have argued that they do not apply ideological litmus tests to their donors or trustees, a position of principle, but also one that enabled often cash-challenged nonprofit institutions to accept financing from the widest spectrum of individuals.

The natural history museum cited the principle a few years ago in defending its decision to offer a board seat to Rebekah Mercer, who is an influential donor to the museum and also to groups that deny climate change.

Some museums, however, have recently taken a different stance. In several cases, institutions have said they are reconsidering their associations with some members of the Sackler family because their company, Purdue Pharma, has been linked to the opioid crisis.

This article originally appeared in <a id="6477f4ee-ef6e-3895-a309-ebd7c9ba54a1" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/arts/design/natural-history-museum-will-not-host-gala-for-brazils-president.html">The New York Times</a>.

Natural History Museum will not host gala for Brazil's president

NEW YORK — The American Museum of Natural History said Monday that it would no longer host an event at the museum by an outside organization that was to have honored President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, whose environmental policies have come under fire.

In statements Thursday and Friday, the museum responded to criticism that an institution dedicated to nature and science would serve as a podium to honor someone who has proposed opening up more of the Amazon rainforest to mining and agribusiness.

The event is an annual gala honoring a Person of the Year Award organized by the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce, a nonprofit that promotes business and cultural ties between the United States and Brazil.

The museum said it had agreed to book the event this year before it learned who the nominee would be, and its remarks suggested it might be considering whether there is any way to back out of hosting the engagement.

“The external, private event at which the current President of Brazil is to be honored was booked at the Museum before the honoree was secured,” the museum said in a tweet. “We are deeply concerned, and we are exploring our options.”

In a statement Friday, the museum said the event “does not in any way reflect the Museum’s position that there is an urgent need to conserve the Amazon Rainforest, which has such profound implications for biological diversity, indigenous communities, climate change, and the future health of our planet.”

The outcry over the event comes at a time of increasing sensitivities about what sort of oversight museums should demonstrate in regard to the people who serve on their boards, give them money or, as in this case, rent their space.

The natural history museum cited the principle a few years ago in defending its decision to offer a board seat to Rebekah Mercer, who is an influential donor to the museum as well as to groups that deny climate change.

Some museums, however, have recently taken a different stance, in several cases, for example, saying they were reconsidering their connections to the Sackler family over the ties of some family members to the opioid crisis. And in New York, there have been protests at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where a vice chairman on its board, Warren Kanders, runs a company that manufactures tear gas that was used to repel migrants trying to cross into the United States from Mexico.

The Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce could not be reached for comment. Michael R. Bloomberg, former mayor of New York, was one of the chamber’s honorees last year, and Bill Clinton has been an honoree in the past.

The criticism toward this year’s honoree built quickly. Mayor Bill de Blasio entered the debate Friday, telling WNYC radio that he found the event at an institution that accepts city funding “really troubling.”

“If you’re talking about a publicly supported institution and you’re talking about someone who’s doing something tangibly destructive, I’m uncomfortable with it, and I would certainly urge the museum not to allow him to be hosted there,” he said.

Beka Economopoulos, who is the director of a traveling museum, said some staff members at the natural history museum had been organizing in opposition to the event involving Bolsonaro.

“What he stands for is antithetical to what the museum stands for,” she said. “When the museum offers its name and its space to this individual, it undermines the trust the public puts in this museum and in science itself.”

Officials at the museum seemed to recognize that the gala has become an issue that needed to be addressed with their staff. A letter to the staff was sent out Thursday night from Michael Novacek, senior vice president and provost, and Daniel Scheiner, vice president for human resources, saying they shared “a deep concern at the current plans.”

A spokeswoman for the museum said she could not speculate on what options the institution was exploring for a gala that is just a month away. “That is precisely the review that is going on now,” said the spokeswoman, Anne Canty.

Gala honoree causes concern at American museum of natural history

NEW YORK — The American Museum of Natural History says it is exploring its options after discovering that the honoree at a gala to which it rented space next month will be President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, whose environmental policies have come under fire.

“The plaintiffs have settled their claims against Mr. Cosby,” a lawyer for the seven women, Joseph Cammarata, said. “Each of the plaintiffs is satisfied with the settlement.”

Cammarata said the details of the settlement were confidential and were awaiting the judge’s approval.

A spokesman for Cosby confirmed that a settlement had been reached, but insisted Cosby was not paying. Instead, he said, Cosby’s insurance company, American International Group, was.

“Mr. Cosby did not settle any cases with anyone,” said the spokesman, Andrew Wyatt. “He is not paying anything to anyone.”

Wyatt added: “AIG decided to settle these cases, without the knowledge, permission and/or consent of Mr. Cosby. Mr. Cosby vehemently denies the allegations brought against him in these defamation suits, and he maintains his innocence.”

The defamation claims are separate from Cosby’s criminal case in Pennsylvania, in which he was found guilty last year of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman, Andrea Constand, at his home near Philadelphia in 2004. Cosby, 81, is serving a sentence of three to 10 years at a maximum-security prison, although he has appealed the verdict and continues to maintain his innocence.

After they came forward with their own accusations of sexual assault, the seven women could not sue Cosby on grounds directly related to their accusations because the statute of limitations for such cases had expired. Instead, they filed defamation suits, asserting that they had been branded liars.

Cosby denied all the allegations, and fought the claims in the suit, first filed in 2014 by one woman, Tamara Green, and subsequently joined by others: Therese Serignese, Linda Traitz, Barbara Bowman, Joan Tarshis, Louisa Moritz and Angela Leslie. (Moritz, an actress, died in January at age 72.)

Cosby also filed counterclaims against the women, saying they had tarnished his reputation by their actions. Wyatt, his spokesman, said that despite the AIG settlement, Cosby would still pursue these counterclaims against the women.

As the case has proceeded, Cosby’s legal bills have mounted, but he is covered by a home insurance policy that provides “personal injury” coverage in a range of circumstances, including lawsuits that accuse the policy holder of defamation.

AIG tried to limit its exposure, arguing in court that it was not compelled to cover claims stemming from sexual misconduct. But judges in Massachusetts and California sided with Cosby.

A spokesman for AIG did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

Other women filed lawsuits against Cosby, and three other cases remain active in courtrooms around the country.

In one of the cases, filed in California, Janice Dickinson, the former model who says Cosby raped her in a Lake Tahoe hotel room in 1982, has accused him of defamation. A representative for Dickinson did not respond to a request for comment.

In the two other cases, the two women were able to bring suits related directly to their accusations of sexual assault.

The civil suits had largely been on hold while the criminal trial played out. In the Massachusetts case, Cosby’s wife, Camille, had been deposed. Cammarata said that if Cosby continued to pursue the counterclaims against the women, he would continue with his plan to depose Cosby in prison in Pennsylvania and seek other documents and evidence.

Cosby’s official Twitter feed, managed by his representatives, posted several messages Friday proclaiming that he had not agreed to the settlement, with hashtags including #BillCosbyDeniedSettlement, #AIGSettlesWithoutBillCosbyConsent and #BillCosbyWillNotPayADime.”

As a matter of practice, insurance companies may not need a client’s permission to settle a case under some circumstances. Asked whether Cosby would agree to release AIG from its responsibility to cover him so he could continue to fight the women’s lawsuits on his own, his spokesman did not immediately respond.

7 Women Suing Bill Cosby Reach Settlement in Defamation Case

Seven women who accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault, and then sued him for defamation when his representatives accused them of lying, have settled their claims in their long-running case, according to documents filed Friday in federal court in Massachusetts.

7 women suing Bill Cosby reach settlement in defamation case

But last week authorities moved him from so-called administrative segregation to join the general population in a wing that houses other inmates, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections.

Amy Worden, a spokeswoman for the corrections department, said Cosby made the move Jan. 28, although she would not specify the wing to which he was sent. Cosby’s spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, said that the former entertainer’s new single-person cell is in an area that houses only older inmates and that he did not view it as a “general population” unit. But Worden said that that was not the case and that the prison does not have an area reserved for older inmates.

Cosby — now inmate NN7687 — is among the most famous prisoners in America, and his movements have been closely watched since he was sentenced last year in the assault of Andrea Constand at his home in 2004.

“Being released into the general pop means he will have shared meal times, shared yard time, all out-of-cell time will be among other individuals,” said Jennifer Storm, the state’s victim advocate who is familiar with the prison where Cosby is serving a three-to-10 year sentence for sexual assault.

Because Cosby, 81, is legally blind, he will continue to have another inmate assigned to him “to help him get around as other elderly and/or infirm inmates have as well,” Worden said in an email.

If he chooses, he will be able to join with other inmates in the exercise yard twice a day, she said. Inmates also are able to have visitors, make phone calls, purchase TVs, radios and snacks and receive emails,

“He is treated the same as other inmates in the system,” Worden said.

Cosby’s new unit has a butterfly design, with two levels of cells joined to a central day room where inmates can socialize, play games and watch television. He will also eat with others in a central chow hall.

The former entertainer had been allowed to stay at his home in Montgomery County while awaiting sentencing. Until last week he had occupied a single 7-by-13-foot cell with a 10-foot ceiling at the prison, near the infirmary and isolated from other inmates, although he had access to a day room.

Cosby is appealing his conviction. He had asked to be released on bail while he appeals but the judge denied his request.

SCI Phoenix is a new prison in Collegeville, about a 45-minute drive from Philadelphia. Built at a cost of $400 million, the state correctional institution opened last summer to replace SCI Graterford, built in 1929. It houses a maximum of 3,830 inmates.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/arts/television/bill-cosby-isolated-no-more-joins-other-inmates-in-prison.html" id="0e460bc9-aa46-3c21-ac5a-cfe4e10aa234">The New York Times</a>.

As he adjusted to incarceration, Bill Cosby spent his first four months in prison in a special unit, isolated from other inmates, out of concern for his safety at SCI Phoenix, a maximum-security facility outside Philadelphia.

Bill Cosby, Isolated No More, Joins Other Inmates in Prison

Constand sued Castor three years ago, arguing that comments he made to explain his decision not to prosecute Cosby had hurt her reputation by depicting her as a liar.

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The case had been scheduled for trial in April at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

“All litigation between the parties has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of both parties,” the lawyers for both sides said in a joint statement sent Friday. “Other than what is contained in this statement, neither side will have any further comment.”

Castor was the Montgomery County district attorney in 2005 when Constand approached authorities to complain that Cosby had sexually assaulted her at his home outside Philadelphia. Castor declined to bring charges, saying he found “insufficient credible and admissible evidence” and that both sides could be portrayed in “a less than flattering light.”

Constand then sued Cosby and won a civil settlement in 2006.

Constand’s defamation lawsuit referred to comments that Castor made later, in 2015, after a number of other women had come forward to accuse Cosby of drugging and sexual assaulting them. Castor was asked then about his decision not to prosecute, and he offered answers that Constand said suggested she had been inconsistent in describing the assault and had provided a more detailed account in the Cosby civil suit.

“If the allegations in the civil complaint were contained in that detail in her statement to the police, we might have been able to make a case out of it,” Castor told The Associated Press. In a tweet, he said the account she had given the police was “much different than she told court in her lawsuit,” according to the filing.

Castor’s successors as prosecutors for Montgomery County decided later in 2015 to bring charges against Cosby, in part because of new evidence. Cosby was convicted last year of aggravated indecent assault and is serving a sentence of three to 10 years in prison.

Castor had argued that his comments were true and so they could not be a basis for a defamation suit.

The order, by Judge Eduardo C. Robreno, announcing the settlement and dismissing the case was filed in court Monday.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/01/arts/television/victim-of-cosby-sexual-assault-settles-suit-with-former-prosecutor.html" id="b34f1d3f-81e0-364b-ab50-c824845e6854">The New York Times</a>.

Andrea Constand has settled her defamation lawsuit against Bruce L. Castor Jr., the former Pennsylvania district attorney who declined to prosecute Bill Cosby in 2005 for the sexual assault for which Cosby is now imprisoned.

Graham Bowley

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