|
 An advance copy of an Allen op-ed piece to be published in
the Sunday edition of the New York Times was posted online five
days after Dylan Farrow, 28, revived and elaborated on the
decades-old accusation in an open letter on the Times website.
Allen was never arrested or prosecuted after the allegations of
sexual abuse against him surfaced in 1993 and were investigated
by state police in Connecticut, where Mia Farrow and her
children lived.
He said the accusations originally struck him as "so ludicrous I
didn't give it a second thought".
And he quoted findings from a review of the case by the Child
Sexual Abuse Clinic of the Yale-New Haven Hospital, which he
said concluded: "It is our expert opinion that Dylan was not
sexually abused by Mr. Allen."
He said he agreed with the clinic's findings that Dylan's
account was likely to be the product of "an emotionally
vulnerable child who was caught up in a disturbed family" and
was "coached or influenced by her mother".
"Of course, I did not molest Dylan," Allen wrote. "I loved her
and hope one day she will grasp how she has been cheated out of
having a loving father and exploited by a mother more interested
in her own festering anger than her daughter's well-being."
Dylan Farrow stood by her allegations in a statement published
on the ABC News website on Friday.
"Woody Allen has an arsenal of lawyers and publicists but the
one thing he does not have on his side is the truth," she said.
"I won't let the truth be buried and I won't be silenced."
Reuters was not able immediately to reach representatives for
Mia and Dylan Farrow for comment.
Mia Farrow, now 68, who appeared in more than a dozen of Allen's
films, ended a 12-year relationship with the director in 1992
amid revelations that he had an affair with her then-22-year-old
adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, whom Allen later married.
Allen has long asserted that Farrow fabricated the molestation
claims against him and planted them in Dylan's mind as a ploy to
damage him in the custody battle that ensued.
The sex abuse claim against the prolific four-time Oscar winner,
famed for such films as "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan", was first
revisited by Dylan Farrow and her mother in an interview with
Vanity Fair magazine last year.
ACCUSATIONS REVIVED AT AWARDS SEASON
Mia Farrow's son, Ronan, the brother of Dylan and the estranged
son of Woody Allen, revived the molestation claim on Twitter in
response to a telecast of January's Golden Globe Awards, where
Allen was given a lifetime achievement honor.
[to top of second column] |
 Dylan Farrow then expanded on the accusations in the
New York Times last Saturday, asserting that Allen assaulted her in
a closet-sized attic of the family home 21 years ago.
She also detailed a pattern of what she said were other instances of
sexually inappropriate behavior by Allen toward her over the years.
Allen has been nominated for best original screenplay at the Oscars
on March 2 for his latest film, "Blue Jasmine," which also garnered
acting nominations for Cate Blanchett and Sally Hawkins.
Allen did not suggest his daughter was lying, but
rather that she had "come to believe she's been molested" after
"many years of indoctrination" by her mother.
He also cited Dylan Farrow's older brother, Moses Farrow, as a
character witness in his defense, quoting him from a recent People
magazine article asserting that Allen never molested his sister and
that their mother "succeeded in creating the atmosphere of fear and
hate towards him".
Moses Farrow, who was 14 at the time, is now a 36-year-old family
therapist.
Allen also questioned Mia Farrow's honesty in relation to his
presumed biological son, Ronan, whose paternity was called into
question by his mother in the Vanity Fair expose last year. In it,
she stated publicly for the first time that she believed Ronan might
actually have been fathered by singer Frank Sinatra, with whom she
had an affair while she was with Allen.
"Granted, he looks a lot like Frank with the blue
eyes and facial features, but if so, what does this say?" Allen
wrote.
"Even if he is not Frank's, the possibility she raises that he could
be, indicates she was secretly intimate with him during our years,"
Allen wrote. "Not to mention all the money I paid for child support.
Was I supporting Frank's son? Again, I want to call attention to the
integrity and honesty of a person who conducts her life like that."
The filmmaker had previously issued denials of the latest
molestation claims against him through statements by his attorney in
multiple television appearances this week.
Allen wrote in his personal rejoinder on Friday: "This piece will be
my final word on this entire matter, and no one will be responding
on my behalf to any further comments on it by any party."
(Reporting by Eric Kelsey and Steve
Gorman in Los Angeles; additional reporting by Eric M. Johnson;
editing by Ken Wills and Tom Pfeiffer)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
