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Post by TheTruth on Sept 17, 2003 23:55:39 GMT -5
Charity is in makeup of Luster family By Colleen Cason June 25, 2003
Every story on serial rapist Andrew Luster invariably contains the phrase: "heir to the Max Factor cosmetics fortune."
Luster is a great-grandson of the late Max Factor -- father of the false eyelash and pioneering makeup artist who worked his magic on starlets of the silver screen. The Russian immigrant then parlayed his golden touch into gold by selling his products to every woman aching to look like a film goddess, which is pretty much every woman.
In my Sunday column, I pointed out that scions of wealthy families often put their inherited riches to work to benefit their communities. But Luster lived like a spoiled trust-fund baby, spending his easily earned dollars on sport fishing and knockout drops.
I suggested in that column that if Luster had served his fellow man, he might not be serving 124 years for sexually assaulting three women he subdued with the date-rape drug.
Lee Quaintance of Oxnard replied to my column with a surprising bit of news.
"If Luster needs a snapshot on how to use inherited wealth, he might have considered the Factor family itself," he said.
Quaintance worked for Max Factor cosmetics as its associate general counsel in the early '70s and until it was sold to tycoon Norton Simon in 1973.
"I would expect they are pained by the fact every Luster story begins with the tag 'Max Factor heir,' " he said.
So is the Max Factor company, which continues to sell its beauty products at big-box stores near you. A pop-up on its Web site advises Andrew Luster has no ties to the company.
"In fact, none of the family has played a role in the company since 1973 or profited from it," the disclaimer reads.
The Factor family has remained silent on the Luster case. But Quaintance is more than willing to speak up for them.
"I found them to be generous and honorable people," said Quaintance, who today directs the nonprofit Beacon Foundation, dedicated to safeguarding Ventura County's coastline.
Lost in the lurid headlines about Luster, he told me, is the fact the money made from purveying the facial foundation was used to start a charitable foundation.
If you want to see just how far the apple fell from the tree, do an Internet search for the Max Factor Family Foundation.
The charity gave away almost $700,000 in 2001, according to Suzanne Coffman, director of communications for GuideStar.org, a nonprofit that posts the giving histories of charities.
In fact, the foundation donated $4 million in 1972 to break ground on Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. It continues to support that institution to this day, recently bankrolling a heart attack prevention campaign.
The foundation, which some family members oversee, gives generously to causes to fight domestic abuse, especially the USC Family Violence Center.
The Factor charity has the vision to fund the Center for the Partially Sighted as well as research on eye diseases that blind the elderly and literacy programs that open the eyes of children.
The foundation is a major donor in the war on cancer, giving to both the City of Hope and the John Wayne Cancer Institute.
One of the state's smallest nonprofits benefits from its generosity. Shoes That Fit of Claremont receives $9,000 a year to provide emergency assistance to underprivileged kids.
"The school year comes around and so many children don't go because they don't have shoes and supplies," said Roni Lomeli, executive director. Factor Foundation money goes toward getting those students well-shod and on the road to learning.
The foundation's most generous yearly contribution, typically around a quarter of a million, goes to the Jewish Federation, a nonsectarian organization that provides services from soup to Nikes to the impoverished, according to Tzivia Schwartz-Getzug, vice president of public relations for the L.A. organization.
The Factor foundation even provided a grant to support chromosomal mapping.
The sad truth is that boilerplate phrase "Max Factor heir" is there because Luster never made a name for himself before he drugged and raped his victims.
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Post by Sherry on Sept 18, 2003 22:05:28 GMT -5
www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/06/19/1055828433399.htmlCosmetics heir rapist captured by bounty hunter June 20 2003 By Tracy Wilson Puerto Vallarta, Mexico Picture: AFP Andrew Luster Fugitive serial rapist Andrew Luster, the great-grandson of cosmetics magnate Max Factor, has been captured in Mexico by bounty hunters and jailed with his captors after police responded to what they believed was a kidnapping. Luster, 39, was detained by police in the Mexican resort town of Puerto Vallarta on Wednesday, along with three bounty hunters and a video cameraman. The bounty hunters had tackled Luster as he was ordering a late-night taco from a street stand, witnesses said. For the past six months, Californian and US authorities have pursued Luster after he broke off an electronic monitoring bracelet and fled during his trial in January. A Ventura County jury convicted him a month later on 86 counts for drugging and raping three women. He was sentenced to 124 years in state prison. Bounty hunter Duane Chapman, 50, joined the search five months ago in the hope of collecting a percentage of Luster's forfeited $US1 million ($A1.4 million) bail. Mr Chapman, a former convict who goes by the nickname "Dog", had been tracking Luster in Mexico for the past week after receiving a tip that he was hiding there. Mr Chapman caught up with Luster early on Wednesday. Witnesses said a man they believed was Mr Chapman grabbed Luster just as the fugitive was ordering tacos from a street vendor near the beach. Witness Paco Robles said Luster was forced to lie face down while Mr Chapman undressed him. Three men filmed the incident, according to Robles and several other witnesses.
"They took off all his clothes" except his underwear, Mr Robles said. Then, he said, they turned him over, sprayed some kind of gas on him and piled him into a van. Police spokesman Sebastian Zavala said police were alerted when they received a report of a street fight. When officers arrived, witnesses recounted how Luster was subdued and bundled into a van. Two police cars gave chase, intercepting two vans near the Puerto Vallarta Airport. In addition to Luster, police detained Mr Chapman, his brother, Tim Chapman, 38, and son, Leland Chapman, 25, as well as his agent, Boris Krutonog, 41, and cameraman Jeff Darren Sells, 35. Luster is being held while his immigration status is determined. If he is in Mexico illegally, he will be deported to the US. Otherwise, he would be returned by an extradition order. Luster, who lived mostly on money from his trust fund, was convicted of luring three women to his beach house, north of Los Angeles, between 1996 and 2000, and raping them after spiking their drinks with the date-rape drug GHB. The sensational case captivated public attention as it played out in court as the tale of a millionaire playboy with a fetish for drugging young women and videotaping himself raping them. James thingymeyer, a spokesman for the US embassy in Mexico City, said the FBI was working with Mexican authorities "to try to get this guy returned to face justice in the United States". The status of the five others was not immediately clear. Mexican authorities said they were looking into whether they had broken any laws. - Los Angeles Times, Washington Post
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Post by Sherry on Sept 18, 2003 22:07:02 GMT -5
web1.wsvn.com/news/articles/world/C24982/08/13/2003 Mexican Prosecutors Issue Order To Find, Extradite Bounty Hunters Who Caught Max Factor Heir PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico -- State authorities have issued an all-points bulletin for three U.S. bounty hunters who left Mexico while awaiting trial on charges related to the capture of convicted rapist and Max Factor heir Andrew Luster. Officials took action after a judge declared Duane "Dog" Chapman, his son, Leland, and brother, Timothy, in violation of their bail, which required them to sign in at court weekly, state prosecutor Marco Roberto Juarez said. Authorities have asked the National Migration Institute, the federal Attorney General's office and Interpol to "first find the men in question, later require their extradition and finally to make them appear and respond to the charges against them," Juarez said Monday. The Chapmans are charged with criminal association and deprivation of liberty after their unauthorized capture of Luster in this Pacific coast resort city in late June. The charges carry up to eight years in prison. "We're not running away from nothing," Chapman said Tuesday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press in Los Angeles. "As far as I know, we are not in violation of our bail." In the past, Chapman has said he left Mexico because he feared reprisals. He said it was his understanding that he was not required to return to Mexico and it was sufficient for his lawyers to stay in touch with Mexican officials. Chapman's wife, Beth Smith, said her husband had only been charged with deprivation of liberty. "How can they extradite him to a Third World country for a petty misdemeanor?" Smith said. "Please pull this back into reality. We are almost bankrupt because of the capture of Andrew Luster." Prosecutors argue the bounty hunters should have gone to police instead of seizing Luster themselves. A California judge ruled this month that Duane Chapman, who is based in Hawaii, was not entitled to any part of the $1 million bail Luster forfeited when he vanished during his trial in January because Chapman was not acting as a legally authorized bail recovery agent. Luster was convicted in absentia in California of drugging and raping three women. He is now serving a 124-year prison sentence. Mexican Judge Jose de Jesus Pineda has issued conflicting messages throughout the case. When he freed the bounty hunters June 23, he ordered them to stay in Mexico and sign in each week. Shortly afterward, he said he did not care where the defendants went six days of the week as long as they showed up each Monday. Still later, Pineda said he did not need to see the bounty hunters in court -- and finally he refused to comment further. The judge was on vacation Tuesday. (AP)
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Post by Sherry on Sept 18, 2003 22:20:53 GMT -5
More details... old.smh.com.au/news/0108/14/world/world6.htmlTuesday August 14, 2001 -WORLD Nightmare on Mussel Shoals Andrew Luster is an heir to the Max Factor millions - and, say police, a man obsessed with drugging and raping young women. William Langley reports from California. In a low, wooden beach house with spray-flecked windows and rickety floors, Andrew Luster, born into the Max Factor cosmetics fortune, an ace surfer and alleged sex fiend, is pondering the prospect of life beyond the breakers. Mussel Shoals, a discreet and exclusive coastal "colony" 80 kilometres north of Los Angeles, is a place of beautiful bodies and high-gloss lifestyles, but 37-year-old Luster, great-grandson of the Polish-born Hollywood make-up legend, looks terrible. His face is grey and drawn and his dark hair raked back in a thick, greasy slick. "This is like a bad dream," he says. "A sick, crazy nightmare. It's unbelievable."Luster is awaiting trial on 88 charges relating to the alleged drugging, raping and videotaping of young women. The case - dense with lurid detail and mutual rancour - has scandalised the glamorous but conservative community where Luster has lived quietly for almost 20 years. After his arrest last year police seized a number of home-made videos from the beach house. Three of the women featured in them have been identified, but police say there are at least 10 more they have been unable to trace. In a dramatic preliminary hearing last month, prosecutor John Blair portrayed Luster as a ruthless and accomplished "date rapist" with a predilection for having sex with unconscious women. To make the point he screened Luster's videos for the court. "We have almost 60 minutes of images on videotape of this defendant engaging in serious sexual assaults," says Blair. The prosecution says Luster - playing on his wealth and family connections - would meet girls in bars or nightclubs, then lure them to Mussel Shoals, where he would lace their drinks with gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), a drug sometimes known as liquid ecstasy or simply Liquid. Odourless and colourless, GHB was originally developed as an anaesthetic in the 1960s, and became popular as a diet supplement in the '80s. Its sale was banned in the US in 1990 after it was found to cause dizziness and fainting. Australia banned importation of the drug in 1996 and it is prohibited in several States, including NSW and Queensland. One of the seized tapes - inscribed "shawna ghb-ing" - shows an attractive young woman stretched out motionless on a bed. Luster, sporting a hungry grin and a twinkle in his eyes, turns to the camera and says: "This is what I dream about. A beautiful strawberry blonde, passed out on my bed, waiting for me to do with her what I will." Luster is then seen undressing the girl and having sex with her. She remains silent and appears to be unconscious throughout. d**ning material, as Luster ruefully admits. But not, in his view, the whole story. "If these were rapes," he says, "do you think - does anyone think - I'd be crazy enough to leave the evidence lying around the house? Not even hidden away but right there on my bookshelves? Everything you can see on those tapes is consensual. The case is a set-up."Luster was arrested on July 18 last year after a 21-year-old woman went to the police alleging that she had been drugged and raped at his home two days earlier. She was identified from the tapes - as, in the course of the investigation that followed, was Shawna and another woman called Tonja. All three are prosecution witnesses. More than a year after his arrest, Luster, who has no previous criminal convictions, still appears to be in deep shock. "I'm just a beach guy," he says over the sound of the waves slopping near his doorstep. "I've lived here 18 years. The only trouble I've ever had is when my dog got loose and started a fight."The beach and the surf are forbidden to Luster now. Under the terms of his $1million bail, he must wear an electronic tag and not leave the precincts of his property. Not even to go shopping. The story of his fall from surfer heaven is complex and troubling. It began last year during a night out in Santa Barbara, the chic seaside town 24 kilometres up the coast from Mussel Shoals. At about nine on the evening of July 15, Luster and a friend, Michael King, drove into town in Luster's white Toyota Supra. They headed, as they usually did, for State Street, the centre of Santa Barbara's vibrant nightlife. Young people come from everywhere on Saturday nights to join in the bar and club scene on State Street. One of them on that July evening was a 21-year-old student, who can only be identified as Carey, at the University of California's Santa Barbara campus. Carey lived in a small apartment in nearby Isla Vista. She didn't have a regular boyfriend, but had made arrangements to go into town with an older graduate student we shall call David. He came from a wealthy Catholic family, and would later say that the fear of exposing his parents to scandal explained the disturbing inconsistencies that would duly appear in his evidence. Before leaving her home, Carey drank two bottles of Fat Weasel beer - a "boutique brew" with an alcohol content of 7 per cent. She and David first went to Woodstock's, a bar-and-grill in Isla Vista, where they drank Long Island iced tea - a mix of vodka, dark rum, gin and triple sec. At about 10.30pm they boarded a bus to State Street, hit a few more bars and at about 1am reached O'Malley's, a dance and drinks joint where Luster and King were sitting at the bar. The four fell into casual conversation. There was some dancing, more talking and finally an agreement to move on to the Spearmint Rhino - an expensive strip club just behind State Street. But when the party arrived, a little after 1.30am, they were turned away. The club's head of security, Sergei Onishenko, a tough, crop-haired Russian immigrant, can recall the incident clearly: "The girl was everywhere, wasted," he says. "We don't have a problem with women coming to the club. But we have a strict door policy. No-one comes inside intoxicated." So the foursome squeezed into the Toyota and headed south to Luster's house. Luster drove with King sitting next to him. It is only a 15-minute run from Santa Barbara to Mussel Shoals. David and Carey used the time to have sex on the back seat. When questioned by the police later, David at first denied that any such activity took place. He later admitted that it had, saying he had lied to spare his parents embarrassment. Cont. next screen...
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Post by Sherry on Sept 18, 2003 22:21:46 GMT -5
cont.- All was quiet when they reached Mussel Shoals. The colony is no more than a disparate cluster of pastel-painted homes squeezed between the beach and the only street. There is an inn at one end and a jetty at the other. The backyards of the houses are full of surfboards and dinghies. The breakers arrive non-stop from Hawaii. Luster parked the car and the four got out, whereupon - according to statements made to police - Carey peeled off her dress and wearing only knickers skipped down the street to the jetty and plunged into the sea. Luster and King helped her out and the party went into the house. Everyone involved is in reasonably close agreement as to the events of the evening thus far. Luster and Carey furthermore acknowledge that once inside the house they had sex in the shower. He says it was consensual. She says it wasn't. After this the participants' accounts of what happened diverge ever further. David appears to have crashed out on a sofa. He can remember little. Luster says that he and Carey went to his bedroom where they found King, dressed in nothing but a green mint-flavoured condom, waiting for them. King - who has not been charged - says that he also then had sex with Carey. Luster confirms this. Carey denies it. She says that once in the bedroom Luster offered her a tall peach-coloured drink. She asked him what it was and he told her "Liquid X". After drinking it, she says, she felt a tingling in her spine and "something like a hot wave" rushing through her body. The next thing she remembers is waking up in bed with Luster at her side. She felt weak and could not fully open her eyes. At some stage during the night's proceedings she had been videoed, although she claims to have no recollection of it. They had sex again - twice - even though she didn't want it. After they had all risen, Luster drove Carey and David back to Santa Barbara. Two days later she went to the police. "I felt violated," she told the preliminary hearing. "I felt humiliated. I couldn't believe he had done this to me." Date-rape allegations - as prosecutors know and the record clearly shows - are extraordinarily difficult to prove. It is in the nature of such cases that the plaintiff and defendant have - up to the point of the alleged rape - enjoyed a measure of contact and often an advanced degree of familiarity. The problem is how to prove that while the "date" was by agreement the sex was not. But there is one crucial difference in the Luster case. "We have the videos," says Blair. "We can actually see these crimes taking place. As far as I know, this has never happened before." Sensitive to allegations by Luster's defence team that the prosecution has been deliberately playing to the media, Blair is reluctant to discuss it in any detail. "But I think we have a strong case," he says. "The idea that this man has been just picked out to be made an example of is ridiculous." At the hearing, Luster's lawyer, Joel Isaacson, argued for the case to be dismissed. He says that all three women's complaints were motivated by malice and embarrassment at their own behaviour. Anyway, he contended, only one of them - Shawna, the "strawberry blonde" - was in a state of "questionable" consciousness. An epic battle is now in prospect. The case is shaping up to be the biggest, most heavily publicised and lurid date-rape trial since the failed 1991 prosecution of William Kennedy Smith in Palm Beach, Florida. "I wouldn't want to call it," a seasoned California rape trial lawyer tells me. "The tapes are devastating. But the guy's got a good name and a lot of money. Who knows? There's some weird stuff in there." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Living a good life on a wave of family money Andrew Stuart "Drew" Luster was born into privilege and raised in Malibu - the starriest "colony" of all - in a large oceanside home, with Barbra Streisand and Steve McQueen for neighbours. His father, Dr Henry Luster, was a leading Los Angeles physician and his mother, Elizabeth, the granddaughter of Max Factor. In the "golden age" of Hollywood, Factor became synonymous with the creative application of make-up (he invented both lip-gloss and false eyelashes), and, on the strength of his fame, built a powerful commercial empire. The son of a rabbi, Factor was born in 1877 in Ldz, Poland. He trained as a pharmacist, but in his early 20s moved to Moscow where he worked first as a wigmaker, then as a costume and make-up consultant to the Russian Imperial Grand Opera. In 1904 he travelled to the World's Fair in St Louis, Missouri, intending to exhibit the range of emollients, rouges and fragrances he had created. He never returned. Factor had spotted the emergence of the movie industry and understood the huge opportunities it represented. In the mid-1920s he launched his first mass-market cosmetics range, promising that any girl "could look like a movie star". In 1973 Factor's son, Max jnr, sold the business for $US480 million - equivalent to more than $US2billion ($3.9billion) today - and it was bought by Procter & Gamble, the giant American household products group, in 1991. Elizabeth, who now maintains a house in Beverly Hills and a ranch in the Sonoma wine country, received a substantial part of the proceeds. The younger of the Lusters' two children, Andrew was privately educated at the Windward School in Santa Monica - a much-favoured destination for the offspring of ambitious showbusiness parents. He wasn't a brilliant student, but shone at sports, especially surfing and skiing. His good looks, physique and laid-back demeanour won him early and lasting popularity with women. A Windward contemporary, who refused to be named, says: "What I most remember of him was this terrific confidence. He was full of daring, and it came, I think, from his talent for sports. He didn't believe there was a wave he could ever fall off. There wasn't a mountain he couldn't come down. When I read about what had happened to him, I thought, 'Uh-oh - maybe Drew just found the wrong wave'." At 18, using money left to him in a trust fund - about $US150,000, Luster says when pressed - he bought his single-storey house in Mussel Shoals. Some reports have depicted it as a palace, but it is far from that. The rough-hewn walls are hung with surfer pictures and maritime bric-à-brac. The furnishings are comfortable but threadbare. Property tax records filed with the Ventura County authorities valued it at $US800,000. For several years Luster shared the house with, Valeri Balderamaa girlfriend with whom he had two children. When the relationship broke up five years ago, Elizabeth Luster bought Balderama and the children a house down the coast in Pacific Palisades. Luster has not been allowed to see them since his arrest. He has never had a proper job. Indeed, his finances are among the many murky aspects of the case. In opposing his bail application, prosecutor John Blair claimed that Luster could be worth $US30million, but Luster says this estimate is "insane" and just another attempt by the prosecution to fish for headlines. Insofar as he does anything for a living, he "day-trades" on the Internet, buying shares and quickly selling them again in the hope of making a quick profit, claiming he makes an average of $US60,000 to $US70,000 a year. The Telegraph, London
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Post by Sherry on Sept 18, 2003 22:22:51 GMT -5
Mother of convicted date rapist Andrew Luster defends son, says he'll be freed Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - The mother of convicted date rapist Andrew Luster said Monday she was shocked by videotaped footage used to convict the Max Factor heir of assaulting three women and called descriptions of her son as a sexual predator "blatant lies."
In an interview with CNN's Paula Zahn, Elizabeth Luster acknowledged she was surprised by the tapes, but suggested she was more troubled by their public airing than by their content.
"I just felt that they were acting out sexual fantasies and private behavior they never expected anyone else in the world to see," she said of her son and others on the tapes. "Something that people do in the privacy of their own homes suddenly becomes international news."
Asked if the tapes disturbed her on any level, she said, "Certainly it was disturbing because it became public."
Luster also said she expects her son to be exonerated on appeal and released from prison.
Luster, who jumped $1 million bail during his trial, was convicted in absentia of drugging and raping three women and sentenced to 124 years in prison. He was captured by bounty hunters in Mexico six months later and returned to the United States in June to begin serving his sentence.
Prosecutors say the 39-year-old great-grandson of cosmetics legend Max Factor lured women to his beach house in Mussell Shoals where he used the date-rape drug GHB to render them unconscious, then videotaped himself sexually assaulting them.
Last week a judge ordered him to pay $19 million to one of his victims, who sued him.
Zahn also interviewed Luster attorney Kiana Sloan-Hillier, who said she believes the Max Factor heir fled because he felt he was not getting a fair trial.
She called his trial a "kangaroo court" and said he told her videotaped footage not shown in court would corroborate his contention that the sex was consensual.
Luster's mother said she takes offense to characterizations of her son as a sociopath and sexual predator.
"He's not any of those things that have been described," Elizabeth Luster said. "Those were extrapolations that were made up mostly ... mostly they were blatant lies."
She visited her son last week and said he was depressed and "kind of resigned" to his fate, but also "hopeful."
Sloan-Hillier said an appeal was filed last month with the California Supreme Court.
The action seeks to overturn a lower court decision of July 2 that rejected Luster's attempt to appeal his conviction, Roger Diamond, another of Luster's lawyers, said by phone.
California's high court has 90 days to decide whether to hear the action, which was filed July 21, Diamond said.
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Post by Sherry on Sept 18, 2003 22:28:50 GMT -5
Heir's date-rape trial loses its Luster
New Zealand Herald 11.01.2003 By ROGER FRANKLIN Herald correspondent If she didn't have a fugitive son to worry about just now, Beverly Hills matron Elizabeth Luster would be free to occupy the idle moments between Rodeo Drive shopping expeditions by making plans for a celebration of her grandfather and everything he did to change the face of sex in America.
Frankie, the family calls him. Frankie Factor, better known to the rest of the world as Max, the young man who arrived in the US almost a century ago with several trunkloads of the theatrical cosmetics he had developed for the cast of Russia's Imperial Opera.
Unlike the decadent dames of the Old World, corn-fed American women regarded the rouges, powders and eyebrow pencils he had come to peddle at the Chicago World's Fair as the accoutrements of whoredom. They would stop at his booth, tut-tut at the Lodz-born chemist's immoral wares and move on.
But Frankie, who had defied his rabbi father's wish that he devote his life to the Torah, was a man with a sharp eye for the main chance. In another of the fair's exhibits, he saw the future on a silver screen and knew at a glance that it needed him.
It was the moving-picture exhibition that captured his imagination. Like his fellow gawkers, Factor was transfixed by the flickering images. Unlike them, he noticed that the actors' faces were wan and washed out, bleached to a ghostly anaemia by the bright lights that the primitive film of the day demanded.
Frankie went straight to New York, where the first studios were springing up in Brooklyn and Queens, and then followed when the industry migrated west, where the seed of what soon came to be known as Hollywood was taking root beneath the cloudless Californian skies.
Once America's women noticed that their idols were sporting face paint, he reasoned, the stigma would vanish and they would flock to him in droves.
They did, and the rest is history. By the middle of the Roaring Twenties, Max Factor lipsticks and mascaras were staples in five-and-dime store across the US and he was a millionaire many times.
Every red-blooded American woman felt free, as his ads promised, to "look like a movie star".
It's a supreme irony, when you think about it. Movies made the family fortune - and now, with an international manhunt under way for Max's great-grandson, it is filmed images of a decidedly more sinister sort that are keeping a mortified Elizabeth Luster, 69, out of the malls and boutiques.
Last week her son skipped out on a million-dollar bail rather than stand trial for allegedly drugging and raping what police prosecutors say may be as many as 200 women.
The proof: a collection of 17 home videos of victims passed out on the bed in the master bedroom of 38-year-old Andrew "Drew" Luster's beachfront home at Mussel Shoals, not far from Malibu, where the trust-fund baby grew up in the certain knowledge that the inherited fruits of his great-grandfather's genius would underwrite an endless summer of surfing, sex and inspired idleness.
The worst of the videos have been culled and edited into 60 minutes of hard-core highlights that prosecutors insist would oblige any jury to convict.
"This is what I dream about," one snippet catches Luster telling the camera. A beautiful strawberry blonde, passed out on my bed, waiting for me to do with her what I will."
Over the next several minutes, he is seen stripping her naked, amusing himself by inserting a variety of household objects into the victim's vagina and then, smiling all the while as the camera rolls, raping her repeatedly. Throughout it all, she never moves a muscle, not even a twitch.
According to prosecutors, the muscle-bound Luster never went anywhere without a vial of gamma hydroxybutyrate, the notorious "date-rape drug" better known as GHB.
Easily extracted from a thingytail of caustic chemicals that any reasonably proficient high school science student could distil from paint thinner and lye, it mimics a compound found naturally in the brain that immobilises the muscles during deep sleep.
Small amounts, a mere drop or two, were once used to relax and dilate the cervix during childbirth. Larger quantities, however, produce an initial reaction almost indistinguishable from drooling drunkenness - which is how prosecutors say Luster made his move.
After spotting a likely prospect at a bar, he would slip a teasthingyful into her drink and then gallantly carry her to his car, assuring barmen and bouncers that she was in safe hands.
Who could have suspected that Luster's intentions were anything less than honourable?
The locals knew him as the rich kid who didn't have to work, the perpetual surfer seldom seen without his beloved German shepherd.
"This wasn't some creepy guy living behind a bush some place," says Santa Barbara Rape Crisis Centre's Grace Huerta. "This is a good-looking, wealthy, educated man."
Before he vanished, apparently after telling friends that the local district attorney's leaks to the press had robbed him of any chance of a fair trial, Luster had been insisting that the videos, far from d**ning him as a monster, were actually the proof that he was finally to do something productive with his life.
He had decided, he said, to become a professional pornographer and those home movies were mere rehearsals for the career to come. The girls were all conscious, he insisted, and if they weren't, then they had downed the GHB in the full knowledge that it would render them helpless.
"If these were rapes, do you think - does anyone think - I'd be crazy enough to leave the evidence lying around the house? Not even hidden away, but right there on my bookshelves?" Luster asked a reporter for The Daily Telegraph weeks after his arrest in July, 2000. "Everything you can see on those tapes is consensual. The case is a set-up."
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Post by Sherry on Sept 18, 2003 22:30:12 GMT -5
Continued...
Prosecutors scoff at Luster's argument, saying he had grown thingyy and careless.
GHB strips victims of any ability to recall what happened to them and cannot be detected in the blood or urine more than 48 hours after ingestion. Why should he have taken precautions, they ask? He had pulled the same trick so many times he must have thought himself untouchable.
A jury will get to decide that question, since the judge has ruled that Luster will be tried in absentia. But in the meantime, even readers of the supermarket tabloids can't help but have noticed the inconsistencies in the prosecution's case.
For starters, police admit that repeated searches of Luster's home turned up not a drop of GHB. The closest they came was a collection of small, screw-top bottles bearing hand-lettered labels like "knock-out drops," "frigid fluid" and "lollypop juice".
When a police witness produced them unexpectedly on the witness stand, Luster's lawyers objected. Did they contain GHB? No. Well, what was the clear liquid? The forensics expert insisted he didn't know because lab tests were taking longer than expected.
Later, the same lawyers evinced mock surprise, saying the fluid was nothing more than tap water. The vials, they said, were innocent props for Luster's pornographic home movies.
In one of those videos, which the judge refused to admit as evidence, Luster rebukes a sex partner for appearing too alert. In early December, when the judge rejected the request and announced that he would no longer tolerate defence attempts to delay the trial, Luster's lawyers complained publicly that their client was being railroaded.
It was then, the defendant's friends suspect, that a life on the lam began to seem preferable to a conviction that might well oblige him to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Just before Christmas, when the trial was adjourned for a 10-day break, his legal team succeeded in freeing him from the electronic monitoring device he had been forced to wear since his arrest.
The judge agreed, but insisted that Luster report to police twice a day.
Last Friday morning, as he had done every other day, he followed those instructions to the letter. But that night, when police stopped by his home at 8pm, they found it empty, the wardrobes stripped of all but winter clothes, and his car, dog and surfboards all missing.
Court buffs have good reason to lament Luster's vanishing act because the trial promised some of the ficretin legal drama since the Kennedy clan's William Kennedy Smith beat a rape rap in Florida more than a decade ago.
From the circumstances that led to his arrest, to the details of life and love in the luxury lane, Luster's case has them all.
He was tumbled, according to police, after picking up a young woman and her boyfriend at a local bar.
The couple had been drinking when they encountered Luster, who drove them to his home where the boyfriend passed out on the couch after first having sex with his sweetheart on the back seat of Luster's car, while he followed the action in the rear-view mirror.
At Luster's house, while the others staggered to the front door, the girl - identified only as "Carey" - ran down to the water, stripped and went skinny-dipping.
By her own admission, Luster brought her inside and put her in a warm shower, where he joined her for sex as her beau snored on the sofa. After that, she says, he drugged her, turned on the camera and raped her.
The next morning, when she awoke in his bed, he again had sex with her - twice, although she insists neither episode was consensual.
Two days later, when it was too late to detect any lingering trace of GHB, she went to the police. Luster's lawyers say her criminal complaint had nothing to do with rape and everything to do with guilt about cheating on an angry boyfriend.
Luster's home was raided, the videos seized and he was dragged away in handcuffs to spend months behind bars, before eventually being freed on bail.
By then, his case seemed hopeless. Police had sifted through the videos, identified at least 10 other alleged victims and persuaded three of them to testify against him.
Now, as California police issue worldwide alerts, Luster's whereabouts are anybody's guess - and everyone who knew him has their own theory. To fellow surf bums at his favourite beaches, "he's gone south, where it's warm, man, and the waves are cool", as one put it.
Others speculate that their buddy laid a careful trail of false clues to confound investiidiots and may be trying to lose himself in Eastern Europe or Asia. No one seems to have the foggiest notion, least of all his lawyers, who told the judge that their client may have had "an accident" - perhaps a euphemism for suicide.
One thing is certain, if Luster is on the lam, he won't want for money. According to prosecutors, who admit they only scratched the surface of his financial affairs, he may have as much as US$40 million ($75 million) in discreet bank accounts, many of them overseas.
While the police try to pick up the trail, and those whose lives Luster touched - the victims, his family and two kids from a failed marriage - dodge reporters, another casualty of the case tries to keep its brand name out of the muck: consumer-goods giant Proctor & Gamble, which bought Max Factor from Frankie's heirs back in 1973 for US$480 million ($900 million).
"We have no connection with Andrew Luster, none whatsoever," a company spokesman stressed. Plenty of other people only wish they could say the same thing.
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Post by Sherry on Sept 18, 2003 22:31:00 GMT -5
VENTURA, Calif. - Convicted rapist and Max Factor heir Andrew Luster wired money from a trust fund and had removed the hard drive from his computer in the days before he fled the country, according to law enforcement documents.
Seven search warrants released by prosecutors Tuesday also show that investiidiots focused on Luster's mother and at least one friend whom he contacted just before he fled.
Luster was required to remain under house arrest prior to his trial, but allowed to leave his home a few hours every day. After he left and never returned Jan. 3, investiidiots searched his beach house in Mussell Shoals and obtained warrants for Luster's phone records and credit card and investment accounts.
The warrants show Luster wired an unspecified amount of money from his trust fund to an undisclosed location. They indicate investiidiots tracked phone calls at the Malibu home of Luster's mother, Elizabeth. Also tracked was a 19-minute call placed by Luster to a friend in Massachusetts, Vincent Gillespie.
Luster, who jumped $1 million bail during his trial, was convicted in absentia of drugging and raping three women and sentenced to 124 years in prison. He was captured by bounty hunters in Mexico six months later and returned to the United States in June to begin serving his sentence.
Prosecutors say the 39-year-old great-grandson of cosmetics legend Max Factor lured women to his home where he used the date-rape drug GHB to render them unconscious, then videotaped himself sexually assaulting them.
Last week a judge ordered him to pay $19 million to one of his victims, who sued him.
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Post by Sherry on Sept 18, 2003 22:36:03 GMT -5
Warrants detail how authorities hunted for Luster By Aron Miller, amiller@insidevc.com August 20, 2003
During the days after Andrew Luster ditched his trial in January, Ventura County investigaators frantically dug through phone, e-mail and bank records to track him down.
They spoke with friends and neighbors about where the Max Factor heir might have gone and received theories about Bali and South America.
The one clue that seemed to indicate he was in Mexico -- where a bounty hunter ultimately found him in June -- was a call from his mother's phone to a Baja California residence.
Police had placed a trap on Elizabeth Luster's phone in Malibu, hoping to find out if they had communicated during his first few days on the lam. She had supported him since his arrest and continues to profess his innocence.
On Jan. 15, about 10 days after Luster fled, someone used his mother's phone to call Bajamar, Mexico, according to a search warrant affidavit made public Tuesday. There is no way to know who called, or who answered, and that was the only international call made from her phone between Jan. 1 and Feb. 5, based on records police reviewed.
The warrants, which Ventura County Superior Court Judge Edward Brodie unsealed at the Ventura County Star's request, provide an indication that while local law enforcement initially searched hard for Luster, their efforts ended up fruitless.
"It didn't pan out in the ultimate capture of Mr. Luster," Senior Deputy District Attorney Maeve Fox said of investigaators' initial work. "It's a theory and it may turn into nothing. That's what those warrants show."
In all, the District Attorney's Office and Sheriff's Department filed 15 search warrant affidavits between Jan. 6 and April. Brodie agreed to unseal eight of them, although The Star had requested all of them.
The others provide specific details about people who might have helped Luster flee. Because of the ongoing nature of those cases, Brodie left them under seal but told Fox he wanted an update by Dec. 15.
In March, Brodie denied the same request by The Star, saying the case was still ongoing and that publishing information about it could hamper efforts to find Luster.
After he skipped out on his $1 million bail, Luster, 39, was convicted and sentenced in absentia to 124 years in prison. Bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman captured him in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, as he stood near a taco stand at 5 a.m., having spent that night partying at dance clubs. Chapman had received a tip from a real estate owner in Mexico and pounced when the FBI was slow to respond.
Luster is now serving his time at Salinas Valley State Prison. His appeal with the state Supreme Court is pending.
When investigaators realized he had fled from his Mussel Shoals home, where he had been under house arrest during his trial, they immediately suspected his mother might have something to do with it, according to the warrants.
They noted that Elizabeth Luster had attended every day of the trial until her son left. They also noted that phone call to Mexico, and calls to a man in Massachusetts who also had supported Luster during the beginning portion of his case.
When the authorities called the Mexican number, a woman answered in Spanish and said the number was her residence.
Police have not arrested Elizabeth Luster in connection with her son's escape and apparently do not plan to pursue her.
In November, two months before Luster left, his phone bill shows he called numbers in Italy, Hawaii, New York and Massachusetts. When police seized his day planner, they saw he had written a note to himself to check the Internet for fake identification, investigaatorss wrote in the warrants.
During their investigation, detectives spoke with people close to Luster who might have known where he had gone. One man who had taken him on a surfing trip to the Canary Islands suspected he might have gone to Brazil or Argentina.
Another felt he had made it to Bali or an island nation in the West Indian Ocean known as Maldives.
A third, a friend named Aaron Luckett, told police Luster was "very intelligent" and "street smart." Luckett had asked Luster what he would do if he were convicted.
"Luckett said Luster was confident his attorney would win his case and did not allude to any plans to leave," investigaatorss wrote in the warrants. "Luckett then explained that he felt Luster did not tell anyone about fleeing because he did not want to create any 'weak links.' "
One month after he fled, two detectives spoke with the mother of his two children. She told them the two kids were "very upset" upon learning Luster had left.
Luster's son was especially affected because he had a "very close relationship" with his father. The mother said Luster "loved his son deeply and she feared that Luster or someone aiding Luster would try to take (the boy) to Luster once he is established in a new area," police wrote in the warrants.
"(The mother) told us that she told (the boy) not to go with anyone who might say they were going to take him to his father and explained that if he were to go to see his father, he might never see her again."
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Post by TheTruth on Sept 19, 2003 0:49:06 GMT -5
Fri, December 13, 2002
Cosmetics heir charged with rape
VENTURA, Calif. (AP) -- Attorneys for cosmetics heir Andrew Luster say he was an aspiring producer of pornography when he videotaped himself having sex with three women he is accused of raping.
Defense lawyers said Thursday that excerpts of Luster's homemade movies, including one entitled "Babes and Waves," should be shown to jurors when his rape trial begins next week.
Luster, the 38-year-old great-grandson of cosmetics magnate Max Factor, was arrested in July 2000 after a woman told authorities she was drugged at a Santa Barbara bar, then raped at his Ventura County beach house. Detectives said they found videotapes of Luster engaging in sex acts with two other women who appeared to be unconscious.
He faces drug and weapons charges for allegedly slipping date-rape drugs to three women, sexually assaulting and videotaping them.
If convicted, Luster could face up to 150 years in prison.
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Post by TheTruth on Sept 19, 2003 19:28:46 GMT -5
www.dailynexus.comwww.dailynexus.com/news/2003/4076.html Assault Suspect Skips His Trial Andrew Stuart Luster's location unknown after failed court appearance by Jennifer B. Siverts - Staff Writer Tuesday, January 7, 2003 Ventura County Superior Court Judge Ken Riley pronounced 39-year-old Andrew Stuart Luster a fugitive Monday morning after Luster failed to show up in court. Luster, heir to the Max Factor cosmetics fortune, is charged with 87 criminal counts for sexually assaulting three women after allegedly giving the women the date rape drug gammahydroxybutyrate [GHB]. Ventura County Sheriff's Dept. Public Information Officer Eric Nishimoto said they have not been able to locate Luster, who was released on bail for $1 million after he was arrested in July 2000. Luster's initial bail was set at $10 million, however the court of appeals lowered his bail. Luster's defense attorney Roger Diamond said he wishes he could comment on his client's whereabouts, however Judge Riley initiated a gag order on both the defense and Deputy District Attorney Anthony Wold about a year ago when proceedings began.
"As much as I would like to talk to you about this matter, a gag order remains, despite my objection to the judge," he said. "Today, the judge partially lifted the gag order and is allowing the prosecution to talk, but not the defense. Therefore I must apologize, but I don't want to violate that order." Luster now faces a warrant for his arrest with no chance of bail if he is found, Riley said. The suspect frequently attended clubs and bars in downtown Santa Barbara and Isla Vista. One of the victims was allegedly assaulted after having been drugged at the Wildcat Lounge in downtown Santa Barbara. Dan, a manager from Isla Vista's Study Hall who declined to provide a last name, said as a result of threatening incidents such as the one that occurred at the Wildcat, they have employed an 'unattended drink rule,' which requires an employee to throw out any unattended drink. If a customer objects, the Study Hall will issue a new drink; however, it will not give them the unattended drink. "We may lose a little money doing this, but it's worth the safety of our customers," he said. Ventura County Deputy District Attorney Wold was not available for comment.
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Post by TheTruth on Sept 19, 2003 19:34:10 GMT -5
June 18, 2003 www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/19/48hours/main541212.shtml(CBS) Years after their breakup, Tonja would learn that Andrew Luster was under arrest. She went to the Ventura County Sheriff’s office, thinking she might be of some help to the investigation. That’s when she learned what really happened on the first night she met Andrew Luster. “I walked in there, and the sheriff took one look at me, and pointed at me and said, ‘I have videotapes of you that we confiscated from his home.’” And those tapes, prosecutors say, show that Tonja was raped by Luster while she was passed out on his bed. Luster spent five months in jail before a judge lowered his bail from $10 million to $1 million. After that, he was on an electronic monitoring device, confined to his house. He said he was being persecuted because of his family name. “I’m the trophy that the police want on their wall,” he says. But prosecutors Maeve Fox and Anthony Wold say Luster would be prosecuted no matter who he is -- and they say they've never seen such d**ning evidence. “He gives his confession on tape. I mean he basically satisfies every element of the penal code violations that we charged him with," says Wold. "He talks about intent, he describes what he’s going to do. Then he does it.” But Luster disagrees: “Everything that’s transpired between me and my girlfriends has always been consensual.” How can it be consensual if they’re not even conscious? “Like I was saying: everything I’ve ever done with my girlfriends has always been consensual,” says Luster.
But the judge wouldn’t let the Luster’s defense team make the argument that the sex was consensual. He cited recent higher court rulings in California that state a woman has the right to change her mind at anytime. And because Luster’s accusers were unconscious at the time of the alleged assaults, the judge ruled they could not exercise their right to say no. “It is a big problem,” says Luster’s lead defense attorney, Roger Diamond. Diamond planned an unusual defense: The women in the videotapes were just pretending to be unconscious, to help Luster make porno films. “It’s what I would expect when you have absolutely no other defense whatsoever," says Wold. "If you are dumb enough to videotape yourself raping two comatose females that doesn’t leave you a lot of room for a defense at trial." Both Tonja and Shawna say emphatically that they were not acting. On Tonja’s tape, the assault is most brutal. “He was doing things to me that were so painful, that would normally have been so painful in a conscious state that there is absolutely no way, I don’t care who you are, what kind of pain tolerance you have you can just lie there and continue snoring and not even flinch," says Tonja. "There was no acting involved.” Two and a half years after Luster was arrested, the case went to trial. Tonja was the first accuser to take the stand. Her testimony – along with the videotape evidence – was a powerful combination for the prosecution. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- As the trial continued, Luster seemed to realize what the prosecution believed all along. Luster was asked if he had prepared himself for jail: “I don't know if anybody can prepare themselves for dying. And that's basically what it would be because it's a death sentence.” Halfway through his rape trial, Luster fled. He had jumped bail, disappeared and was declared a fugitive from justice. Prosecutors weren’t surprised. “It’s an ankle bracelet. It’s not a chain. It does not physically prevent him from leaving his home, hopping in a car and taking off,” says Wold. Authorities eventually found his abandoned car on a residential street. A Max Factor family album was inside. While the hunt for Luster continued, so did his trial, over the objections of his defense attorney. "Makes the case much more difficult to present," says Diamond. In his absence, the jury saw the incriminating tape of Shawna, passed out and snoring. Then the jury heard from Carrie. There was no videotape in her case, and Diamond tried to convince the jury she was conscious and willing.
“When I cross examined her, I got her to admit that she never said no, and never resisted,” says Diamond. Almost three weeks after Luster disappeared, the jury passed judgment: guilty on 86 of the 87 counts against him. But it didn’t feel like justice to his victims. “He can’t just walk away and leave everybody that he’s hurt just here with nothing, just to deal with our pain just to try to pick up the pieces and move on with our lives the best way we know how,” says Tonja. After more than five months as a fugitive, Andrew Luster's luck ran out. He was arrested at a resort in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and dragged from his vehicle by bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman, who'd been on his trail for months. Chapman had a TV crew in tow, hoping he'd get famous if he got his man. "He did wrong," says Chapman. "He needs to come in." The bounty hunter got his big break from an American tourist who recognized Luster in a photo of him enjoying himself at a party. But right after Chapman and his group snared their prey, police stopped them enroute to the airport. The police arrest Luster and Chapman's team too since bounty hunting is illegal in Mexico. Prosecutors Maeve Fox and Anthony Wold were delighted at the news of Luster's capture. "I'd like to thank Dog for putting the effort out there to get him," says Fox. "This is a good day. I couldn't be happier for law enforcement, for everybody who put in very long hard hours getting him tried, getting him convicted ... and located." Tonight, Luster is back in custody, leaving a hotspot in Mexico for a cold American jail cell -- facing a sentence of up to 124 years. "I feel very good that Luster will spend the rest of his life in a prison cell," says Fox. "Luster is a stone cold predator," adds Wold. "The only place for him is a jail cell. Every moment he was out of custody, females were at risk ... There will be three victims that will be sleeping a lot easier tonight." "I'm going to have to pay for this the rest of my life," says Tonja. "He should have to pay for it for the rest of his life, too." July 3, 2003 An appellate court upheld a ruling that Luster has no right to appeal his guilty verdicts because he jumped bail and fled to Mexico during a break in his trial.
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Post by TheTruth on Sept 19, 2003 20:42:07 GMT -5
Luster's Home Saved By KEYT Staff Jul 18, 2003, 08:00:00
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Convicted rapist, Andrew Luster's, home, which was supposed to be auctioned off, has been saved.
The house was supposed to be auctioned off yesterday, however sources say all back payments on the property were paid. It is not know who made the payments but several disapointed people showed up to bid for the house, estimated at 800,000 dollars. After Luster became a fugitive the house went into foreclosure. Luster is serving a 124 year sentence.
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Post by TheTruth on Sept 19, 2003 20:43:47 GMT -5
'Dog' won't get Luster bail funds, judge rules By Tamara Koehler, tkoehler@insidevc.com August 5, 2003
The bounty hunter who snagged convicted rapist Andrew Luster in Mexico will not get a dime from the cosmetic heir's $1 million bail, a judge ruled today.
Ventura County Superior Court Judge Edward Brodie also found that Luster -- not his mother -- put up the bail, a ruling that clears the way for his victims to lay claim to the money through civil lawsuits.
Brodie also awarded the county more than $150,000 for law enforcement efforts to find Luster after he fled during the middle of his trial in January. The amount reflects efforts made by the Probation Agency, Sheriff's Department and District Attorney's Office to locate Luster up until late March, said Deputy County Counsel William Waters.
Waters could not say why the county costs of finding Luster ended in March. Chapman found Luster in Mexico in June. The FBI also was working on the case.
Under Brodie's ruling, the Probation Agency will receive $9,419 for its labors and the cost of an electronic ankle monitoring device attached to Luster that was never returned.
The Sheriff's Department will receive $89,033 for the labors of five detectives and costs such as monitoring cell phones and towing Luster's abandoned car.
The District Attorney's Office will receive $65,520 for investigation costs related to Luster's disappearance.
Attorneys for three of Luster's victims also sought a piece of the $1 million bail, but Brodie said the law caps victim restitution in criminal cases to a total of $10,000. He ordered the victims to meet with Probation Agency officials for restitution options.
Brodie, however, stayed his rulings for 60 days to allow the parties to appeal.
Brodie said bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman was not entitled to a portion of the bail money because he acted on his own, not as a legally authorized bail recovery agent.
Chapman had asked for $350,000.
"As this money was put up by Andrew Luster and his mother, I think it's highly unlikely they would enter an agreement with Mr. Chapman to go after Mr. Luster," Brodie said.
The law requires bounty hunters to have a formal agreement with the bail bond agent or law enforcement, have a clean criminal record, and follow local laws when they go after fleeing felons.
In Luster's case, Mexican authorities arrested Chapman and his cohorts after they caught Luster outside a bar in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Chapman's attorney, Robert Sanger, said Chapman was cleared of any felony charges and only faces misdemeanor immigration charges at this point.
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