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.

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.”

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.

Victim of Cosby Sexual Assault Settles Suit with Former Prosecutor

Maybe people, they wondered, who had enjoyed Indiana’s iconic sculpture LOVE, with its jaunty, tilted O, would appreciate similar works also based on short words.

What about JOY, one of them proposed in a text message to the other. Or FUN USA? Why not BEER, or perhaps BREW, or even BOB.

“VINO seems to be the biggest that would be the wine drinkers,” Indiana’s caretaker, Jamie Thomas, wrote in one of the text messages to Indiana’s New York art publisher, Michael McKenzie.

“Worth a shot,” McKenzie responded.

To what extent Indiana participated in these discussions, if at all, is part of a continuing dispute in federal court in Manhattan, where the company that has the rights to create and sell works based off the LOVE design has sued the two men.

The company, Morgan Art Foundation, a for-profit entity, has accused the pair of taking advantage of Indiana’s advanced age and isolation on a remote island off the coast of Maine to produce a bunch of inauthentic works that they sold under Indiana’s name.

“When Mr. McKenzie was discussing the creation and sale of these new works,” a lawyer for Morgan, Luke Nikas, wrote in a court filing this week, “he knew he was operating without Indiana’s approval and that Indiana might even be mentally incompetent.”

The Morgan company, which says bogus works damage Indiana’s market and reputation, has previously challenged the authenticity of several works, including BRAT, a huge sculpture and homage to bratwurst that McKenzie sold to a Wisconsin sausage maker.

Now, as part of the lawsuit it filed earlier this year, the company got access to days and days of private text messages between Thomas and McKenzie, in which the two men, the company says, seem to be inventing ideas independent of the artist.

“Hey Michael I am going to send you a pic of a new idea I just came up with just give me a minute to draw it out,” Thomas wrote in a message May 1.

“Awesome can’t wait to see it,” McKenzie replied.

Over the course of the next week or so, the two men went on to propose a succession of ideas for works in the style Indiana was known for — letters offset to make sculptural forms — and they discuss different themes, colors and potential markets.

McKenzie said in an interview that Indiana shared in any proceeds from works McKenzie had a hand in and that he believes the artist had signed off on all the ideas. Even if he had not, McKenzie said, Thomas, who held power of attorney for Indiana, fully understood the artist’s wishes and had the authority to act on his behalf.

“Jamie at one point becomes Robert Indiana in effect,” McKenzie said. “His job is to try to earn money for the estate.”

“Jamie,” he added, “is head of Indiana Inc.”

Certainly the use of assistants in the creative process is not new to the art world, where major figures like Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons have outsourced the nitty-gritty of production to a bevy of assistants. In those cases, the artists have said that they conceived the ideas and lent a final imprimatur to the completed work.

The text messages suggest a wider gulf in which Indiana may not have been fully aware of the art being designed under his name.

“Can bob still speak on this or is he out of it,” McKenzie asks at one point.

It is also clear, though, from the messages that the men were scanning Indiana’s notebooks for inspiration, with the intent of trying to produce works based on old ideas that were in line with his aesthetic spirit. For example, Thomas sent McKenzie a photograph of a page from an Indiana notebook from 1969 that included scribbled ideas for works like “Hole” and “Soul.” Thomas indicates that he had spoken to the artist about whether he had ever made a “Soul” work.

In addition to the BRAT sculpture, other works whose authorship by Indiana has been questioned are a set of prints that display the lyrics of Bob Dylan and a sculpture, WINE, that was created and used for a magazine cover.

In the case of BRAT, James Brannan, Indiana’s former lawyer who is the executor of Indiana’s estate, said in an interview that he was tracking the proceeds from the sale, which was arranged directly between Johnsonville Sausage and McKenzie. “I want to make sure Mr. Indiana got his share of that money,” he said.

In an earlier court filing, a lawyer for McKenzie said Indiana had received “several hundred thousand dollars in royalties for BRAT.”

Beginning in 2008, McKenzie had a contract with Indiana to produce and sell works based on his sculpture “HOPE.” He said the contract called for him to pay Indiana $1 million a year, but since the HOPE works never earned $1 million annually, he had Indiana’s approval to explore other ideas.

In the court papers, the lawyer for McKenzie, Raymond Dowd, said his client had paid Indiana “approximately $10 million dollars in royalties since 2008.” The court filing included copies of several checks, including one from March 2018 for $500,000 from McKenzie to Indiana.

“Indiana gets paid for every one of those ideas if they get greenlighted,” McKenzie said in the interview.

Thomas could not be reached for comment. He and McKenzie have previously denied that they isolated or mistreated Indiana. In fact, McKenzie has argued in court papers that it was Morgan Art Foundation that had not fully paid Indiana for the Indiana artworks it was making, something the company denies.

John Frumer, a lawyer for Thomas, said that his client “remains confident that when the full evidentiary record is developed it will demonstrate that the claims against him are baseless.”

McKenzie said in the interview that Indiana gave them wide leeway to create new works, in part because the artist hoped the money could be used to renovate his home on the island of Vinalhaven and turn it into a museum that honors his artistic legacy. In his will, Indiana named Thomas as executive director of a foundation that will have a huge role in stewarding Indiana’s legacy, including the museum.

The energy Thomas was putting into creating ideas was in the spirit of fulfilling Indiana’s dream, McKenzie said. “He was hustling, but on Bob’s behalf,” he said.

It is clear in the text messages that the men knew Indiana was ailing and that the time to produce works under his name was shrinking.

“If it is done while bob is alive it is art,” McKenzie wrote in a message about two weeks before Indiana’s death, “after that an estate collectible.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/18/arts/design/robert-indiana-artist-legal-dispute.html" id="01eafefe-de4c-3510-af48-ec1dcf4666ac">The New York Times</a>.

In the days before artist Robert Indiana died in May at 89, two of his close associates were brainstorming just what sort of art might be sold under the Indiana brand during his last years.

His Art, Their Ideas: Did Robert Indiana Lose Control of His Work?

Skorton, 69, a cardiologist and former president of Cornell, has been overseeing the Smithsonian’s 19 museums and galleries, the National Zoological Park and research centers since July 2015.

A professor of medicine and pediatrics and biomedical engineering during part of his career, Skorton will become president and chief executive officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges, a nonprofit organization based in Washington that represents medical schools, teaching hospitals and other health care organizations.

“Increasingly I had become concerned about the state of the health care enterprise in the United States,” he said in an interview, explaining that he was especially concerned about problems of equal access to health care and diversity among health care providers.

It was a difficult decision to leave the Smithsonian, he said, but the association “is an organization that looks those issues squarely in the face.” His last day will be June 15, 2019; he said he would use the next six months to help with the transition to a new leader.

Skorton, who previously served on the board of the association of medical colleges, succeeded G. Wayne Clough, another former university president, who led the Smithsonian for seven years.

During Skorton’s four-year tenure, he oversaw important milestones, including the opening of the new National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall in 2016, 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. He said he was proud of the Smithsonian’s collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, a project that will give the Smithsonian its first permanent gallery abroad.

He said he had also made progress on diversity, including initiating the women’s history initiative, “Because of Her Story,” to tell a more complete account of women’s achievements in the United States. He said he calculated that, during his term, 70 percent of new hires at director level had been women or people of color, including the first female director of the National Air and Space Museum and the first woman to be named director of the Museum of American History, an appointment announced this month.

David Rubenstein, chairman of the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents, said that the news that Skorton would be departing had been unexpected but that the board understood his passion for health care.

Even if it had been briefer than they had expected, “there is no question his was a successful tenure,” said the board’s vice-chairman, Steve Case.

Rubenstein said the search for a replacement would start soon with the formation of a search committee, and would probably take four to six months. Case added that among the qualities the Smithsonian was seeking would be those of a “transformational leader.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/arts/design/david-skorton-smithsonian.html" id="a17f66a6-79aa-35c2-a1b9-45b1dc93fc7c">The New York Times</a>.

David J. Skorton, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, is leaving his position to return to the world of health care and medicine as head of a nonprofit organization, the Smithsonian announced Thursday.

David J. Skorton Is Leaving the Smithsonian for a Health Care Nonprofit

“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.

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.”

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.

Graham Bowley

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