Boy George jailed for 15 months for imprisoning escort ...
by TFSnewsRoom/Ap.com
Boy George jailed for 15 months for imprisoning escort
Pop star Boy George, seen here entering Snaresbrook Crown Court, was sentenced to 15 months in jail on …
LONDON (AFP) – British pop star Boy George was sentenced to 15 months in jail on Friday for imprisoning a Norwegian male escort after a nude photoshoot.
The 47-year-old former Culture Club frontman was convicted last month of handcuffing 29-year-old Audun Carlsen and beating him with a metal chain, when he tried to escape the musician's London apartment.
The singer and disc jockey, who stood trial under his real name George O'Dowd, admitted to police to handcuffing Carlsen to his bed on April 28, 2007, as he investigated the Norwegian's alleged tampering with his computer.
He denied, however, that he assaulted Carlsen, or hit him with a metal chain, suggesting to officers that the bruises suffered by the escort could have been there due to the fact that he was HIV positive.
O'Dowd and Carlsen met on the gay website Gaydar, and Carlsen first went to O'Dowd's apartment in January 2007, when they posed naked for the photoshoot and took cocaine.
Carlsen said the singer performed a sex act on him for "five seconds before I said no," and the pair later split on good terms, with O'Dowd paying Carlsen 300 pounds (330 euros, 400 dollars), of the 400 pounds that they had agreed.
The Norwegian claimed during the trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court in London that the star proceeded to then send him a string of e-mails accusing him of hacking into his computer.
Despite that, Carlsen returned to O'Dowd's flat in April 2007 and said that when he arrived, he was handcuffed to a wall hook, called a "whore," punched repeatedly and beat with a metal chain when he tried to flee.