Escort Attack: George Guilty
Norwegian Audun Carlsen, 29, said the singer beat him with a metal chain as he tried to escape from his flat after a naked photo shoot. The 46-year-old singer, who was tried under his real name of George O'Dowd, declined to give evidence in his trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court. However the jury was told he admitted to police that he handcuffed Mr Carlsen to his bed at his flat in Shoreditch, east London, on April 28 last year, while he investigated alleged tampering with his computer.
He accused Mr Carlsen of obtaining photos of himself from his laptop, taken by O'Dowd when the pair met three months earlier.
He denied punching Mr Carlsen or swinging a chain at him as the escort fled the flat and suggested the bruises Mr Carlsen sustained could have been due to the fact that he was HIV positive.
Sky's Sara Merchant, at the east London court, said: "When the foreman said guilty, Boy George's mouth dropped and his friends in the public gallery gasped. From then on he just looked pretty stony-faced. O'Dowd has been released on bail and will be sentenced on January 16.
Judge David Radford, who adjourned the case, said custody was "the more likely option". "He cut a pretty sad figure as he left court clutching a white plastic bag and he had tears in his eyes," said Merchant. "His weight has ballooned and he wasn't wearing any makeup. He was unrecognisable as that familiar 80s figure when he was in Culture Club. The whole thing was very low key."
Mr Carlsen said during the hearing that it was during a second meeting with the singer that things took a violent turn. After calling Mr Carlsen into his bedroom, O'Dowd leapt on him, wrestled him to the floor and started beating him. He told the court that he was dragged along the floor towards the bed and a manacle was put on his right hand and attached to a hook drilled in the wall. Mr Carlsen said O'Dowd produced a plastic box containing chains, sex toys and leather straps. He told the court he was then able to use the handcuffs as a tool to unscrew the hook from the wall. He ran to the door with O'Dowd pursuing him, lashing out with a metal chain, but he managed to escape and get out on to the street where he screamed for help.
A Florida jury has found William David Brown guilty of robbing and murdering Ryan Keith Skipper, a gay man, ABC news reported. The Polk County trial opened on October 26. Prosecutors allege Brown and co-defendant Joseph Bearden killed Skipper, whose body was found abandoned with 19 cuts.
Skipper's bloody body was found near the side of a dirt road that leads to the small town of Wahneta in the early hours of March 14, 2007. Investigators first suggested that Skipper, 25, was killed because he made sexual advances towards one of the men. A claim friends, family and gay rights groups decried as character assassinations.
While Brown has admitted to investigators that he stole Skipper's car and set it on fire, he insists he did not see who stabbed Skipper to death, saying he blacked out.
Bearden was sentenced to life in prison after a jury found him guilty of second-degree murder during a separate trial in February. During his trial, Associate Medical Examiner Vera Volnikh testified that a slash to the throat 3.5 inches deep killed Skipper, who quickly bled to death.
The coroner said it appeared as if Skipper attempted to fight off his attackers. Cuts found on the victim's hands, wrists and arms indicate he tried to block the knife. Some cuts were deeper than others, leaving the possibility that Skipper's 163-pound body blunted the blades of two knives.
Brown did not testify on his own behalf.
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