MADRID (AP) — Spanish state prosecutors said Friday they were shelving an initial investigation into accusations of sexual assault by Julio Iglesias in the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic after concluding that Spain’s National Court lacked jurisdiction to judge the matter.
Earlier this month, Spanish prosecutors had opened an investigation studying allegations that the 82-year-old Grammy-winning global singing star had sexually assaulted two former employees at his residences in the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas.
Iglesias denied the accusations, writing on social media that: “With deep sorrow, I respond to the accusations made by two people who previously worked at my home. I deny having abused, coerced or disrespected any woman. These accusations are absolutely false and cause me great sadness.”
An email seeking comment sent to a Florida attorney whose website says Iglesias is among his clients was not immediately answered.
The two women had presented a complaint to the Spanish court earlier this month, according to Women’s Link Worldwide, a nongovernmental organization that represents them. The group said that the women were accusing Iglesias of “crimes against sexual freedom and indemnity such as sexual harassment” and of “human trafficking for the purpose of forced labor and servitude.”
The women also said Iglesias regularly checked their cellphones, barred them from leaving his house and demanded that they work up to 16 hours a day, with no contract or days off.
When the complaint was filed in Spain, the organization said it had not reached out to authorities in the Bahamas or the Dominican Republic and didn’t know whether investigations had begun in those Caribbean nations.
Iglesias has been among the world's most successful singers in the decades since his 1969 debut album, “Yo Canto.” He has sold more than 300 million records in more than a dozen languages.
After making his start in Spain, Iglesias won immense popularity in the U.S. and wider world in the 1970s and 1980s, partly due to duets with U.S. artists including Willie Nelson and Diana Ross.
He received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019 and in 1988 won a Grammy for Best Latin Pop Performance for his album “Un Hombre Solo.”
He's also the father of pop star Enrique Iglesias.
FILE - Spanish singer Julio Iglesias smiles during his star unveiling ceremony at the Walk of Fame in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. (AP Photo/Carlos Giusti, file)
A federal law requiring impairment-detection devices inside all new cars survived a recent push to strip its funding but remains stalled by questions about whether the technology is ready.
Rana Abbas Taylor lost her sister, brother-in-law, nephew and two nieces when a driver with a blood-alcohol level almost four times the legal limit slammed into their car in January 2019 as the Michigan family drove through Lexington, Kentucky, on the way home from a Florida vacation.
The tragedy turned Abbas Taylor into an outspoken advocate for stopping the more than 10,000 alcohol-related deaths each year on U.S. roads. Lawmakers attached the Honoring Abbas Family Legacy to Terminate Drunk Driving Act to the $1 trillion infrastructure law that then-President Joe Biden signed in 2021.
The measure, often referred to as the Halt Drunk Driving Act, anticipated that as early as this year, auto companies would be required to roll out technology to “passively” detect when drivers are drunk or impaired and prevent their cars from operating. Regulators can choose from a range of options, including air monitors that sample the car's interior for traces of alcohol, fingertip readers that measure a driver's blood-alcohol level, or scanners that detect signs of impairment in eye or head movements.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving called it the most important piece of legislation in the organization's 45-year history. Still, implementation has been bogged down by regulatory delays, without any clear signals that final approval is near.
“The way we measure time is not by days or months or years. It’s by number of lives lost,” Abbas Taylor said in an interview with The Associated Press. “So when we hear manufacturers say, ‘We need more time,’ or ‘The tech is not ready,’ or ‘We’re not there yet,' all we hear is, ‘More people need to die before we’re willing to fix this.’”
A Republican-led effort to remove the Halt Act's funding was defeated in the U.S. House last month by a 268-164 vote. Another bill to repeal it entirely awaits a committee vote.
Most of the opposition has stemmed from suggestions that the law would require manufacturers to equip cars with a “kill switch". That would essentially allow them to “be controlled by the government,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis posted on the social platform X, drawing comparisons to George Orwell's dystopian novel “1984.”
The alcohol industry has fiercely defended the law against such arguments. Chris Swonger, president and CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, said it specifically requires the technology to be passive, similar to other current safety mandates such as seat belts and air bags.
“There is no switch, there’s no government control, there is no sharing of data," he said. “That’s just an unfortunate scare tactic.”
But Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who authored the defunding effort, said even the dashboard acting on its own could serve as “your judge, your jury, and your executioner." He cited the example of a mother who swerves in a snowstorm to avoid hitting a neighbor's pet, only for her car to deactivate itself because it determines she's impaired.
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade association for U.S. automakers, made a similar case to regulators in 2024, arguing that much more research was needed before mandating the technology.
“Even if 1 in 10,000 trips were expected to experience a false positive, this could result in thousands of unimpaired drivers encountering problems that prevent them from driving each day,” the Alliance wrote.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is establishing the rules to implement the Halt Act, told the AP in an email that it's still “assessing developing technologies for potential deployment” and expects to report back to Congress soon. Even supporters predict the agency will push the decision at least into 2027, and auto companies still would have another two to three years to install it.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research arm funded by auto insurers, recently announced that impairment detection and other technology aimed at curbing risky driving behavior would soon be included as criteria for a vehicle to earn one of its top safety awards.
Many states already have laws requiring breath-activated ignition interlock systems to be installed on the cars of DUI offenders. The system ultimately chosen under the Halt Act is intended to detect impairment beyond just drunk driving.
“We’re still sort of pushing back against this narrative that the technology doesn’t exist,” said Stephanie Manning, chief government affairs officer at MADD. “We’ve seen many different types of technology that can solve drunk driving. We just haven’t seen it deployed and implemented the way that we would like.”
To accelerate the timeline, one bill advancing in Congress would offer a $45 million prize to whoever can produce and deploy the first consumer-ready piece of technology. Abbas Taylor, whose family members were killed in the Kentucky crash, said efforts like that give her hope.
“When you've lost everything, there is nothing that will stop you from fighting for what is right,” she said. “But we see the writing on the wall, and we know it’s only a matter of time before this happens.”
FILE - Madiha Maria, left, cries with Rana Abbas Taylor of Northville, Mich., who lost her only sister, brother-in-law and their three children to a drunk driver, during a candlelight vigil for people who had family members killed by drunk drivers, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, on the National Mall, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
