Boy George Is Guilty

12/05/08 12:29pm

by Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

Former Culture Club singer Boy George has been found guilty of falsely imprisoning male escort Audun Carlsen.

The 47-year-old singer, who was tried under his real name of George O'Dowd, will be sentenced on Jan. 16. O'Dowd is likely facing prison time, according to judge David Radford. That could affect his U.K tour that'is slated for May.

"This is a case where custody is the more likely option," Radford told O'Dowd in court on Thursday.

"The fact that your bail is being continued does not imply that this will be dealt with by a non-custodial sentence. I don't want any false expectations created."

Carlsen, 29, had accused O'Dowd of handcuffing him to a hook above O'Dowd's bed and beating him with a metal chain. The two met on the Gaydar gay dating website in 2007, which the court heard led to them posing nude at a photo shoot and taking cocaine.

Carlsen said O'Dowd wanted to have sex with him, but he refused. O'Dowd then paid Carlsen 300 British pounds (about $550 Canadian) for participating in the photo shoot. O'Dowd had agreed to pay Carlsen a total of 400 British pounds (about $740 Canadian).

Although the court heard that the two parted on good terms, Carlsen said O'Dowd later sent him several emails in which he accused the escort of hacking into his computer. In April 2007, Carlsen went back to O'Dowd's apartment, where Carlsen said O'Dowd handcuffed him to a wall. He said O'Dowd then punched and beat him with a metal chain after calling him a "whore" and said, "Now you're going to get it."

O'Dowd, who didn't testify in the trial, told police in a taped interview that he handcuffed Carlsen to the wall, but said he did so in order to check the computer. He denied hitting Carlsen with a metal chain and said Carlsen's injuries had been consensual. His lawyer tried to portray the escort as unreliable, and said O'Dowd was too fat to beat Carlsen up.

O'Dowd was sentenced to a week of community service as a sanitation worker in August 2006 after he filed a false police report about a burglary that never happened. Police found 13 bags of cocaine in his apartment when they showed up.