Alleged 'Tinder Swindler' Simon Leviev Is Sued By Diamond Company Whose Name He Took

Judi Love has opened up about her fears for refugees fleeing Ukraine and has said she tries not to have the news on too much in front of her children as she doesn't want to frighten them. "I don’t want them to be scared, but it is, of course, terrifying," the Loose Women star says. In her latest OK! column, the Loose Women panelist also reflects on her exciting International Women's Day project and shares her thoughts on Piers Morgan's latest TV plans.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticBack together in person after two years of going virtual during the pandemic, the Austin-based SXSW Film Festival has announced its juried prizes. As in previous editions, the awards show happened at the midpoint of the nine-day event, before SXSW’s music events suck much of the attention away from film screenings.The top prize in narrative feature competition went to “I Love My Dad,” written and directed by James Morosini, who also stars as a younger version of himself in this uncomfortable retelling of how he was catfished by his father (played by Patton Oswalt).“Morosini displays massive empathy as a filmmaker to get into the mind of the father he feels betrayed by, and also as an actor portraying the impact of that betrayal,” said the jury, who also gave special jury prizes to the cast and crew of “It Is in Us All” and Elizaveta Yankovskaya, star of the Russian film “Nika.” Best documentary feature honors went to director Rosa Ruth Boesten’s “Master of Light,” a portrait of once-incarcerated painter George Anthony Morton’s steps to rebuild his life after prison, which impressed its jury for its empathy as well.“With astonishing intimacy, the film’s visuals build an artful bridge between two- and three-dimensional realms that are deeply rooted and utterly transcendent,” the jury explained.

The drama continues. Julia Haart is wanted by police for allegedly stealing a vehicle owned by her estranged husband, Silvio Scaglia Haart.

Christopher Vourlias Before the Russian army launched an invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, French war correspondent Loup Bureau was embedded in Donbass, the restive borderland in Eastern Ukraine, which since 2014 has been the site of an ongoing conflict between Russian-backed separatist groups and Ukrainian government forces.Reports were circulating of an impending Russian attack. Bureau, who had already spent time in the region while shooting his feature-length documentary “Trenches” – screening next week at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival – expected it to be a localized skirmish.

Naman Ramachandran As the invasion of Ukraine continues, seven leading Ukrainian filmmakers allege complicity by the Russian artistic community. They are now calling for cultural sanctions against Russia.Valentyn Vasyanovych, director (“Black Level,” “Atlantis,” “Reflection”)Insidious shelling of residential areas with civilians, as well as blackmail of nuclear weapons – is a manifestation of the powerless rage of the fascist regime of Russia and the lack of chances to defeat the Ukrainian army and people in a direct military confrontation.The whole bloody history of Russia, as imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet, is based on the bloodthirsty attitude towards its neighbors and its people, who have never been united ethnically or culturally.

The war in Ukraine was brought home in graphic style earlier this week to a Sky News Team covering the conflict.

Russia’s Customs Service has detained and accused WNBA All-Star Brittney Griner of having vape cartridges in her luggage that contained hashish oil.

W.N.B.A. superstar Brittney Griner has reportedly been detained in Russia on drug charges. The two-time Olympic gold medalist, 31, was arrested at the Sheremetyevo airport near Moscow after Russian custom officials found marijuana vape cartridges in her luggage, according to the New York Times. A statement released by the Customs Service says a criminal case has been opened into the “large-scale transportation of drugs,” which can result in a sentence of 5-10 years in prison if a conviction is upheld.

A.D. Amorosi When Patti Smith joined Substack — the now-five-year-old online platform that publishes and pays writers on a subscription model — the poet, author and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer had been stuck at home in New York City after having canceled a world tour due to COVID.Starting with her tagline (“The reader is my notebook”), and moving into her serialized, on-line novel (“The Melting,” currently 44 chapters long), Smith’s “journal of my private pandemic” promised “an inter-connective body of work for a responsive community,” filled with “ruminations, shards of poetry, music, and musings on whatever subject finds its way from thought to pen, news of the mind, pieces of this world.” Rather than maintain a diary’s staid setting, the communally driven Smith engages her subscriber base with freshly penned songs and poetry readings of her her heroes’ work and her own.

Netflix’s The Tinder Swindler, is facing a lawsuit from the real Leviev family which he pretended to be a part of.In court documents obtained by People, Israeli Russian diamond tycoon Lev Leviev and his family have filed a lawsuit against Hayut for allegedly impersonating them and “receiving numerous benefits (including material ones)” for using the family name.The lawsuit, filed in Tel Aviv, claims that Hayut has been “cunningly using false words, claiming to be a member of the Leviev family, and that his family will pay and bear the cost of his benefits”.The court documents allege that Hayut “defrauded, cheated, conned, falsified, and hurt women, men and businesses” all over the globe.“The defendant used the dating application Tinder to locate women who he then emotionally manipulated, cunningly bamboozled of funds, and eventually convinced to transfer large sums of money to him under the guise of being on the run from individuals intending on hurting him,” the lawsuit reads.Guy Ophir, the attorney for the Leviev family, has said this is “only the beginning” of their legal action against Hayut, with more lawsuits in the works.In a statement to Metro.co.uk, a representative for Hayut denied any wrongdoing. “Simon believes the family is just trying to insert themselves in the narrative for publicity after the show’s success.“Simon also legally changed his name in 2015 and looks forward to this getting thrown out in court.”Hayut is estimated to have allegedly stolen $10million (£7.4million) from a number of victims under the alias of Simon Leviev, after gaining their trust with the promise of expensive dates.Since the Netflix series aired, Hayut has been banned from Tinder, Hinge and other dating apps.

A Maryland man was arrested over the weekend after allegedly abducting two young children from their home.

EXCLUSIVE: The documentary film team at Netflix might be popping champagne corks together right about now, if Covid didn’t inhibit the whole in-person office scenario. They’ve got a lot to celebrate.

The Tinder Swindler could reportedly soon be turned into a feature film courtesy of Netflix.According to Variety, the streaming giant is in early talks with producers about turning the hit documentary into a dramatisation about Israeli conman Shimon Hayut who swindled a number of women out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.Netflix declined to comment on the development of the film at the time of writing, the tone of which remains unclear.Hayut gave a new interview yesterday (February 21), in which he claimed the women in the Netflix documentary “weren’t conned”.“I’m not this monster,” Hayut said of the claims of The Tinder Swindler. “I was just a single guy that wanted to meet some girls on Tinder.”Victims Cecilie Fjellhøy, Ayleen Koeleman and Pernilla Sjoholm recently set up a GoFundMe page to raise money to repay their debts after being conned.“You’re probably here because you’ve heard about our story, and we appreciate you taking the time to search and find this page,” they wrote.

The Tinder Swindler is speaking out!

Simon Leviev, the subject of Netflix’s new documentary The Tinder Swindler, is telling his side of the story.

Simon Leviev, better known as “The Tinder Swindler”, is about to tell his side of the story.