Award-Winning Songwriter & Female PA Charged in Rape Cases
A 71-year-old songwriter and movie director known for his Oscar-winning 1977 pop tune You Light Up My Life has been charged with sexually assaulting 11 young women he allegedly lured to his New York City apartment between 2005 and 2008 with the help of his personal assistant.
Joseph Brooks has pleaded not guilty to the charges he faces in a 91-count indictment in New York state court and has been released on $250,000 bond. His 42-year-old personal assistant, Shawni Lucier, of Federal Way, Wash., is accused of knowingly helping to recruit many of the 18- to 30-year-old women and faces nine misdemeanor counts of criminal facilitation when she surrenders next week, reports the New York Times.
Prosecutors contend that Brooks used the Craigslist advertising website and a personal website to seek aspiring actresses in Florida, California, Oregon, and Washington. Brooks paid for airline tickets to fly them to New York where, says Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, Brooks met them at his apartment under the pretext of potentially casting them in a movie and “incapacitat[ed]” them with wine. One alleged victim told King 5 News that she believes her wine was drugged.
Two of the claimed victims later spoke with rape counselors, and authorities tracked the others down after seizing Brooks’ computer.
Lucier “picked the victims, set up travel arrangements and reassured them,” says prosecutor Lisa Friel. She is chief of the DA’s sex crimes unit.
Lucier also reassured concerned mothers worried about having their daughters travel alone to meet Brooks to discuss possible film roles, according to Morgnethau. “My only regret is that facilitation only carries a sentence of a year,” the DA says.
Attorney Jeffrey Hoffman, who represents Brooks, says his client “didn’t do any of these things,” the newspaper reports.
Lucier did not return a Times telephone message.
Additional coverage:
E! Online: “Oscar-Winning ‘You Light Up My Life’ Songwriter Indicted for Rape”
Playbill: “Joseph Brooks, Creator of Broadway’s In My Life, Charged With Rape”
