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@biancafortis
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Education reporter, @NYSFocus . Previous: @ProPublica , @columbiajourn . Occasional tap dancer. Nuyorican. 📩 bianca @nysfocus .com
Brooklyn, NY
Joined November 2008
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In 2012, Laurie Kanyok was sexually assaulted by her OB/GYN, Dr. Robert Hadden of
@Columbia
U. She called 911 and Hadden was arrested at his office, but was released from custody & returned to work 4 days later. He allegedly assaulted more patients in the following 5 wks.
>>
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NEW: *21%* of Black Tennesseeans can’t vote because of felony convictions.
TN is the state with the highest rates of both Black and Latino (8%) disenfranchisement in the country.
@propublica
59
2K
3K
Thread:
A government official helped inmates at a Florida county jail register to vote.
Now 10 of them have been charged with voter fraud & could face up to 5 years in prison.
4 have already pleaded guilty & been sentenced to between 364 days and 3 years.
>>
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I did not have “get physically assaulted while exiting the train station” on my 2020 bingo card, but here we are. If you are in or near the Morgan Ave. station in Bushwick, PLEASE be aware — I am evidently the fourth woman to have been attacked in the last month.
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THREAD:
Tennessee has the highest rate of Black people who cannot vote because of felony convictions: 21%.
It also has the highest rate of Latinos who can’t vote: 8%.
Here’s why:
>>>
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I'm super excited (and, honestly, stunned) to share that today is my first day at
@propublica
, where I'm joining the national team for a two-year reporting fellowship. Send tips and all that jazz to bianca.fortis
@propublica
.org! 💌
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Until 2018, Florida was one of just 4 states where people with felonies had to petition the governor to have voting rights restored.
Then voters passed Amendment 4, restoring this right to most people with felony convictions.
It didn't last.
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Of the more than 1 million people whose voting rights were restored by Amendment 4, about 750,000 owe fines, fees or restitution and are once again ineligible to vote. Black people were disproportionately impacted.
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A political science professor set out to learn the financial obligations of a random sample of 153 Florida residents convicted of felonies.
She could only find consistent information for 3 of them.
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It's not simple for people to find out how much they owe.
There's no centralized database of the debts. Prisons & jails are required to tell inmates the debts when they're released, but it's not clear if they all do.
Sometimes it costs money just to figure out what you owe.
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Kelvin Bolton had just finished a prison sentence when he was arrested again, this time for voter fraud.
“I’m thinking I’m doing something good for the community…. It was not malicious—I was not trying to commit a felony of voting fraud. I never would have voted.”
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The next year, GOP lawmakers installed a major financial hurdle for these voters:
Before people with felony convictions could vote, they were now required to pay off any money they owed related to their crimes.
Some of these debts run into the thousands of $$.
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“There’s no way Biden was that important to me to vote for him," said Derek Baldwin, one of the men accused of voter fraud. "We were flat out tricked into voting.”
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The FL Department of State can help people figure out their financial obligations. And some state attorneys have created processes to help people verify their voting eligibility or request to reduce their fines and fees.
None of this helped the men in our story.
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The men facing charges said they were never told about the fines & fees rule before registering.
The official said he did tell them, according to a person familiar with the matter who declined to be named. Some jail officials remember that info being shared, others do not.
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@Columbia
@nyphospital
4/ 245 former patients say Hadden sexually abused them. That # continues to rise.
NEW for
@ProPublica
+
@NYMag
:
@LJBeil
and I found that during his 25-year career, several patients had tried to report Hadden in both subtle and obvious ways.
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@Columbia
@nyphospital
@propublica
@NYMag
@LJBeil
@EvelynYang
@CNN
11/ Columbia has agreed to pay $236.5m to 226 women to settle a number of civil suits. But it has otherwise never acknowledged its responsibility in letting Hadden practice despite warnings. It also hasn’t notified patients that their former doctor is a sexual predator.
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4.6 million people in the U.S. – 2% of the population – can’t vote because of felony disenfranchisement laws, which are rooted in pre-Civil War era efforts to prevent Black men from voting.
This data comes from a new analysis by
@SentencingProj
.
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@Columbia
@nyphospital
@propublica
@NYMag
@LJBeil
@EvelynYang
@CNN
8/ Kanyok testified during the trial. When asked what it was like to navigate the justice system, she said, “It’s been a long time. My daughter is 10 years old. I called the police when she was *6 weeks* old.”
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@katsheehan
@SofiaBNewman
“Lawlessness.” I don’t think there’s anything too dangerous about churros. No one is making you buy them
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@SentencingProj
@DawnRHarrington
@freeheartsorg
Disenfranchisement continues to impact elections, especially local races that are decided by a few dozen votes.
"We’re losing votes,"
@SekouFranklin
told me. "There are real votes that are lost that can shape elections."
Read the full
@propublica
story:
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@Columbia
@nyphospital
@propublica
@NYMag
@LJBeil
@EvelynYang
@CNN
9/ For over a year, we tried to get Columbia admins to talk to us directly. They refused. When we visited the home of Hadden’s former supervisor – who hasn’t worked for Columbia in 6 years – we heard back from the university’s spokesperson.
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@Columbia
@nyphospital
@propublica
@NYMag
@LJBeil
5/ After more patients came forward, the Manhattan DA’s Office pursued the case. In 2016, Hadden pleaded guilty to one felony and a misdemeanor. He lost his medical license and registered as a sex offender, but spent no time in jail.
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@Columbia
@nyphospital
@propublica
@NYMag
@LJBeil
@EvelynYang
@CNN
12/ Do you have information about Columbia or NewYork-Presbyterian that we should know? Bianca Fortis can be reached by email at bianca.fortis
@propublica
.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 347-570-0783.
@LJBeil
can be reached by email at laura
@laurabeil
.com.
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“I don’t believe that a lot of the organizations that have filed for the church exemption are in fact churches. And I don’t think that they think that they are in fact churches.”
@asuozzo
@propublica
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NEW for
@propublica
and
@nymag
:
245 patients now allege sexual abuse by Robert Hadden, a former
@Columbia
OB-GYN recently sentenced to 20 yrs
@LJBeil
and I found that patient warnings were dismissed for 20+ years
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@Columbia
@nyphospital
@propublica
@NYMag
@LJBeil
7/ After
@EvelynYang
revealed on
@CNN
that Hadden had assaulted her, more patients came forward. In 2020 the U.S. DOJ got involved, indicting Hadden for enticement – inducing his victims to cross state lines for illegal sexual activity. He was convicted on all 4 counts he faced.
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@Columbia
2/ In this letter – cc’d to the head of his department, the dean of the med school & the president of
@nyphospital
– Hadden is advised he may return to work so long as a chaperone is in the room with him when seeing patients.
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Never did I imagine I would report on Instagram influencers, least of all for
@propublica
, but life is full of surprises. Thanks for letting me help with this,
@CraigSilverman
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Following our September investigation on disgraced OBGYN Robert Hadden,
@Columbia
has announced a series of steps it will take to finally grapple with the harm he caused:
@LJBeil
@ProPublica
@NYmag
@WonderyMedia
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@Columbia
@nyphospital
3/ In April 2013, Columbia sent a mass mailing to patients, advising them that Hadden had “closed his private practice” at Columbia. But the letter failed to say why.
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In just over a year, COVID-19 killed more than 133,000 nursing home residents. And yet, more than 40% of nursing home and LTC workers remain unvaccinated. For
@propublica
, by
@jenny_deam
,
@ryangabrielson
and me:
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@Columbia
@nyphospital
@propublica
@NYMag
@LJBeil
6/ Kanyok thought a civil suit might provide a sense of justice, so she filed one against Columbia.
In 2018, she agreed to settle with the university, but had to sign a strict confidentiality agreement.
She received $475,000 in exchange for her silence.
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@SentencingProj
~80% of disenfranchised ppl in TN have completed their sentences but still can't vote.
That’s because of permanently disqualifying felonies, legal debt, unpaid child support or they just got lost in the process of trying to restore their rights.
1
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New for
@ProPublica
: Ten Florida men are being charged with voter fraud after signing up to vote or casting a ballot in the 2020 election. They didn’t know a state law passed in 2019 made them ineligible.
6
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SOURCE REQUEST: I'm looking for parents of immunocompromised children living in places without virtual schooling options & who are worried about sending their kids back to school. Please msg me here or bianca.fortis
@propublica
.org. Thank you 🙏
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@SentencingProj
I spoke to a lot of people who wanted to vote in the midterm elections but couldn’t. I also spoke to
@DawnRHarrington
, the founder of
@freeheartsorg
, whose rights were restored in 2020. It took nine years.
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@SentencingProj
Many states have eased restrictions on the right to vote for people w felonies. But Tennessee hasn’t.
In 2006, the legislature passed a law that ex-felons must be current on child support before they can vote. Then they mandated that ex-felons also pay court costs & restitution
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@SentencingProj
For those who do apply for restoration, child support is the main reason for denial. And Black men are 4x likely to be denied than non-Black men (p 41):
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@SentencingProj
Some other states require ex-felons to pay court-related debts to vote. But Tennessee is the only state that requires payment of child support.
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@Columbia
@nyphospital
@propublica
@NYMag
@LJBeil
@EvelynYang
@CNN
10/ They did send us two statements. Here’s an excerpt, and you can read the full statement at this link:
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Here's the
@nytimes
story about the attacks, which details the events that occurred until the alleged attacker was arrested. I sincerely hope this case will help bring attention to the very real threat of violence against women. Thank you
@AshleyAtTimes
.
I did not have “get physically assaulted while exiting the train station” on my 2020 bingo card, but here we are. If you are in or near the Morgan Ave. station in Bushwick, PLEASE be aware — I am evidently the fourth woman to have been attacked in the last month.
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1K
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Former Columbia University OB-GYN is now serving 20 years in prison for sexually abusing patients.
@biancafortis
weighs in on her reporting about what happened at Columbia during his investigation.
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Big shoutout to
@raquelnamuche
and other friends who swiftly came to my rescue when I needed it. Very grateful.
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Because I’ve been asked — yes, we reported to the police. Thankfully two good Samaritans found me and called 911. The police are working on this and the three other assaults that have happened at the station in the last month
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1
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We waited two years, but I got to graduate with my
@columbiajourn
classmates today / cc
@KioHerr
@kellyscarrion
@lydiamcmlaird
#roarlions2020
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Incredible reporting by
@js_kaplan
NEW: Earlier this year, Ron DeSantis overruled FL’s GOP-controlled legislature to push through a Congressional map that strongly favored Republicans.
He was secretly aided by GOP-linked national operatives. It may have violated the Florida constitution.
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A well-deserved
@ASME1963
award for
@lomikriel
@LChurchilll
&
@jinitzail
’s incredibly important reporting on Uvalde
@propublica
@TexasTribune
. Congrats!!
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Voter suppression tactics are especially harmful for people with low literacy levels -- people who also tend to be poor and Black or Latino. Amazing work by
@AliyyaSwaby
and
@AnnieWaldman
:
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More than 300 former patients filed civil suits against the university last week. That’s in addition to the 200+ who have previously settled with the university.
@propublica
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Recycling false/bad/popular news is not a new thing. There's historical precedent. -
@jeremygilbert
#MachinesMedia17
0
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woke up to my face in the nyt
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Hello! Popping in from my social media break to share this. We wanted to know what happened to the Pandemic Testing Board that Biden established last year. Here's what we found:
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@yyesstiny
@BANgentrifying
I’ll be honest, I barely saw him. I think he was maybe 5’8”, thin and probably in his 20s. That’s the main challenge the police are having, none of the victims knows what he looks like. But he seems to attack women when they’re totally alone
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I thought I would be the only idiot walking around Bryant park with a cardboard box arts n craft project but there hundreds others
#eclipse
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“I don’t feel incredibly safe or welcomed by a large majority of the students at my school...But it kind of feels worse when the attacks are coming from adults, from the people who are supposed to keep us safe.” via
@JinATX
@propublica
1
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I couldn't find any email newsletters about post
#HurricaneMaria
Puerto Rico news – so I made one. Read + subscribe here: Gracias 🙏🏽 🇵🇷
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New from
@Perla_Trevizo
and
@Mike_Hixenbaugh
for their series on generators -- one of the deadliest consumer products on the market
cc: the entire island of Puerto Rico once again relying on generators in the wake of Fiona
@propublica
1
15
35
Felt down all day and tried to make myself feel better - exercise, sunlight, meditation, CBD oil - none of it helped. Then I remembered I woke up to a climate crisis, a pandemic, a job in which I cover sad stuff, & other awful things. Maybe it’s ok to just feel bad sometimes
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Someone once asked me if being an investigative reporter feels like doing homework all the time, and now, as I sit here trying to finish a story on deadline and feeling like I have a research paper due in the morning, I can't stop thinking about that
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100+
@ColumbiaPS
students and Hadden survivors are staging a silent protest at inauguration of Minouche Shafik, the new
@Columbia
president
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I worked freelance/contract for years, and filing taxes was hell every time. Kudos
@bgstephenson3
for bringing attention to this annual nightmare for freelancers
@propublica
0
7
29
Here’s me wearing an Instagram filter graduation cap instead of a real one, but that’s okay because I’m officially a
@columbiajourn
GRADUATE!
#CJS20
#roarlions2020
#cjs2020
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ICYMI -
@CraigSilverman
and I ventured down the "Instascam" rabbit hole again. Here's what happened when we tried to track down a notorious hacker getting influencers banned from IG:
1
10
27
New for
@ProPublica
:
@AnnieWaldman
and I reported on the challenging decisions that parents of medically fragile children are facing as the school year begins.
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My friend is staying in a Williamsburg Airbnb with NYC-themed decor everywhere and I can’t get over how bad this is
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Maybe
#fakenews
is a symptom. Maybe the US isn't as progressive as we thought. These issues run deeper, says
@sallykohn
#nydnlab
0
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There’s been a fifth attack. I just talked to the victim on the phone. She said the police were at the station, but could not catch him. I am so angry and frustrated and I wish I knew what to do to make this stop.
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This month
@AnnaforFlorida
and
@FarmerforFLSen
introduced a bill that seeks to roll back legal protections for Florida's sugar industry.
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My hometown paper 🥲
Love seeing my new colleague
@biancafortis
on the front page of Florida’s best newspaper!
@TB_Times
@propublica
Her outrageous story here:
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My sincerest thanks to everyone who reached out. Update for anyone who’s been following this.
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I told someone that I’m an investigative reporter and she asked me if I know how to do calligraphy. I’m not posting this to poke fun, but as a reminder that as journalists we shouldn’t assume people understand what we do (especially people we interview!).
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ICYMI:
@Columbia
announced sweeping changes it will take to address the harm caused by OBGYN Robert Hadden
@LJBeil
@ProPublica
@nymag
@WonderyMedia
2
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Dispatches from
@Columbia
student journalists about what happened Tuesday night. Proud to have so many
@columbiajourn
+ Stabile students work with us to produce this:
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Can we all just take a second to imagine how much better things would be if Facebook/Instagram never come back?
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For the month of February, I’m doing Whole 30, a no spend challenge, an ab challenge and a social media detox. On March 1 I’m going to emerge as some kind of superhuman or just an absolute wreck
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The rush I get when a source has the information I've spent three weeks looking for
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Update - there's been an arrest:
The perpetrator is currently in custody and an investigation is in progress - more information to be advised. This is a hate crime against women and we WILL NOT tolerate this behavior. The perpetrator should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
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For anyone who needs a little pick-me-up while they’re stuck inside again, may I suggest…a disco ball?💫
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There are more than 734 million tons of toxic waste, a byproduct of manufacturing phosphate into fertilizer, sitting in giant piles across the U.S. The waste happens to be radioactive.
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Here’s the story on the fifth attack. I’ve also been in touch with someone who was assaulted in November, and her attack fits the pattern — thus bringing our total up to six now.
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This just made my day. So proud to have contributed to this!
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I hate to be *that* person, but I feel amazing
For the month of February, I’m doing Whole 30, a no spend challenge, an ab challenge and a social media detox. On March 1 I’m going to emerge as some kind of superhuman or just an absolute wreck
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0
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