Boy George jailed for 15 months

LONDON – Pop star Boy George was sentenced to 15 months in jail on Friday for imprisoning a Norwegian male escort after a nude photo shoot.

The 47-year-old former Culture Club frontman was found guilty 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 photo shoot and took cocaine.
The Norwegian claimed during the trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court in London that O’Dowd 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.
Boy George briefly embarked on a solo singing career after leaving Culture Club in 1987, before beginning a successful career as a DJ and launching a fashion line B-Rude. – Nampa-AFP