Woody Allen's daughter: my father molested me when I was a child.

I'm not surprised at all.

 

I don't even know his politics. I thought Take the Money and Run and Sleepers were okay, not great. When your are dealing with a father molesting his child, who the hell cares about any of that. Why do you insist on bringing up that I prefer small government in every conversation? Apparently thats why I didn't like American Hustle too

 

Allen's response in the NYT

 

Sounds absolutely convincing to me. Round 2 to Allen.

 

Yup, Woody stuck his d*** in crazy.

 

I haven't followed the history of this too much and don't know the validity or spin of all these "facts", but I found it interesting.

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/02/woody-allen-sex-abuse-10-facts

This week, a number of commentators have published articles containing incorrect and irresponsible claims regarding the allegation of Woody Allen’s having sexually abused his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow. As the author of two lengthy, heavily researched and thoroughly fact-checked articles that deal with that allegation—the first published in 1992, when Dylan was seven, and the second last fall, when she was 28—I feel obliged to set the record straight. As such, I have compiled the following list of undeniable facts:


1. Mia never went to the police about the allegation of sexual abuse. Her lawyer told her on August 5, 1992, to take the seven-year-old Dylan to a pediatrician, who was bound by law to report Dylan’s story of sexual violation to law enforcement and did so on August 6.

2. Allen had been in therapy for alleged inappropriate behavior toward Dylan with a child psychologist before the abuse allegation was presented to the authorities or made public. Mia Farrow had instructed her babysitters that Allen was never to be left alone with Dylan.


3. Allen refused to take a polygraph administered by the Connecticut state police. Instead, he took one from someone hired by his legal team. The Connecticut state police refused to accept the test as evidence. The state attorney, Frank Maco, says that Mia was never asked to take a lie-detector test during the investigation.


4. Allen subsequently lost four exhaustive court battles—a lawsuit, a disciplinary charge against the prosecutor, and two appeals—and was made to pay more than $1 million in Mia’s legal fees. Judge Elliott Wilk, the presiding judge in Allen’s custody suit against Farrow, concluded that there is “no credible evidence to support Mr. Allen’s contention that Ms. Farrow coached Dylan or that Ms. Farrow acted upon a desire for revenge against him for seducing Soon-Yi.”


5. In his 33-page decision, Judge Wilk found that Mr. Allen’s behavior toward Dylan was “grossly inappropriate and that measures must be taken to protect her.” The judge also recounts Farrow’s misgivings regarding Allen’s behavior toward Dylan from the time she was between two and three years old. According to the judge’s decision, Farrow told Allen, “You look at her [Dylan] in a sexual way. You fondled her . . . You don’t give her any breathing room. You look at her when she’s naked.”


6. Dylan’s claim of abuse was consistent with the testimony of three adults who were present that day. On the day of the alleged assault, a babysitter of a friend told police and gave sworn testimony that Allen and Dylan went missing for 15 or 20 minutes, while she was at the house. Another babysitter told police and also swore in court that on that same day, she saw Allen with his head on Dylan’s lap facing her body, while Dylan sat on a couch “staring vacantly in the direction of a television set.” A French tutor for the family told police and testified that that day she found Dylan was not wearing underpants under her sundress. The first babysitter also testified she did not tell Farrow that Allen and Dylan had gone missing until after Dylan made her statements. These sworn accounts contradict Moses Farrow’s recollection of that day in People magazine.

7. The Yale-New Haven Hospital Child Sex Abuse Clinic’s finding that Dylan had not been sexually molested, cited repeatedly by Allen’s attorneys, was not accepted as reliable by Judge Wilk, or by the Connecticut state prosecutor who originally commissioned them. The state prosecutor, Frank Maco, engaged the Yale-New Haven team to determine whether Dylan would be able to perceive facts correctly and be able to repeat her story on the witness stand. The panel consisted of two social workers and a pediatrician, Dr. John Leventhal, who signed off on the report but who never saw Dylan or Mia Farrow. No psychologists or psychiatrists were on the panel. The social workers never testified; the hospital team only presented a sworn deposition by Dr. Leventhal, who did not examine Dylan.


All the notes from the report were destroyed. Her confidentiality was then violated, and Allen held a news conference on the steps of Yale University to announce the results of the case. The report concluded Dylan had trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. (For example, she had told them there were “dead heads” in the attic and called sunset “the magic hour.” In fact, Mia kept wigs from her movies on styrofoam blocks in a trunk in the attic.) The doctor subsequently backed down from his contention.


The Connecticut state police, the state attorney, and Judge Wilk all had serious reservations about the report’s reliability.


8. Allen changed his story about the attic where the abuse allegedly took place. First, Allen told investigators he had never been in the attic where the alleged abuse took place. After his hair was found on a painting in the attic, he admitted that he might have stuck his head in once or twice. A top investigator concluded that his account was not credible.


9. The state attorney, Maco, said publicly he did have probable cause to press charges against Allen but declined, due to the fragility of the “child victim.” Maco told me that he refused to put Dylan through an exhausting trial, and without her on the stand, he could not prosecute Allen.


10. I am not a longtime friend of Mia Farrow’s, and I did not make any deal with her. I have been personally accused of helping my “long-time friend” Mia Farrow place the story that ran in Vanity Fair’s November 2013 issue as part of an effort to help launch Ronan Farrow’s media career. I have also been accused of agreeing to some type of deal with Mia Farrow guaranteeing that the sexual-abuse allegation against Woody Allen would be revisited. For the record, I met Mia Farrow for the first time in 2003, more than 10 years after the first piece was published, at a nonfiction play she appeared in for a benefit in Washington, D.C. I saw her and Dylan again the next day. That is the last time I saw her until I approached her in April 2013 to do a story about her family and how they had fared over the years. I talked to eight of her children, including Dylan and a reluctant Ronan. There was no deal of any kind. Moses Farrow declined to be interviewed for the 2013 piece.

 

Well that piece from Vanity Fair is pretty damning.

 

As a criminal defense attorney, I think people that think that they can figure out what really happened in this case from the press are living in a dream world. Half the crap being tossed around as "evidence" by both sides would never be admissible in court. Go check out the comments from his editorial in the Times. Half of people believe Woody, half believe Mia.

Just accept that Woody Allen is a complicated and flawed human being and leave it at that. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he's a pedophile isn't walking through that door any sooner than Yao Ming leading the Rockets to multiple world championships. Lord help you if you're willing to label another person a pedophile without at least clear and convincing evidence.

 

This is weird, it's turning into a WOF vs DOF. I think most in here that are not WOF know it may not be enough for a court conviction. As a parent, there's something that leads me to believe something happened.

 

Yeah, we call that bias. Reason to believe isn't even enough proof to pull someone over for a speeding ticket.

He's a creep, I get that. There's just a difference in inferring that someone is anything more than creepy based upon an allegation that never even makes it into court.

We live in a world where people don't get jobs in their 30s because they have minor in possession ticket that they got when they were in high school that was bullcrap but continually shows up on a computerized background check. Imagine what happens when an innocent person is arrested for a sex offense, the case dismissed, but it still shows up on a background check because you can't expunge the allegation until 10 years after the complainant turns 18. Or imagine getting an acquittal at trial, but still having it coming up because the arrest is out in the cloud somewhere and pops up from time to time even though the arrest was supposed to be expunged.

If you want to believe that people appear guilty based on an outcry in the middle of a custody battle, you better hope you never find yourself having to defend yourself from the same situation. Innocent people end up moving to different states because of allegations that never even lead to an arrest, but its not like Woody Allen gets to stop being Woody Allen.

 

Do you think a pedophile can be reformed? I don't think so. So if he was a pedophile, do you think Dylan was the only kid he did it to? Can't be. So there must be others. With his resources there would be plenty of opportunities. But where are they? With someone famous like this, I just don't see other victims being quiet. But no one has come forth. There were plenty of actresses who worked with him when they were relatively young (none of pedo age though). And none have come out to say he was creepy to them, etc.
Of course none of this can be considered evidence to support his side. But it would just seem that there would have been an avalanche of victims popping up when popular opinion was against him. And there just wasn't.

 

That was posted less than a page ago. I think you should at least read the last page of a thread before posting a huge article.

 

You're right- politics should stay out of it- and I can very easily understand why someone would consider him guilty.

I guess the question as it affects any of us- because, let's face it, our personal opinions aren't going to affect this situation, it is going to go back to a private matter- is whether we continue to support someone like this or no? Same with Polanski- do you not watch a classic like Chinatown or Rosemary's Baby (a double whammy if you also believe Mia brainwashed the kid, because Mia's the star and Polanski's the director) or The Pianist due to Polanski? Do you not watch Blue Jasmine? I think the problem with Allen's films is that, unlike Polanski who is rarely in his films, Allen is in about half of his. So, if you really think he did it, it'd be hard watching him on screen.

My personal solution is that I will continue to watch his films b/c they are very well made and interesting- but I think I'll skip Manhattan and Husbands & Wives for a while. Maybe that's wrong to do, who knows?

Attitudes were definitely different back then- the relationship in Manhattan wasn't as big a deal then as it is now. Most haven't commented on the film he wrote Play It Again Sam in which Diane Keaton's character says, "I would never want to be raped. Of course, that would also depend on who's doing the raping." You could never, ever get away with something like that today- but again, things change, and we're in a world where the Redskins are no longer acceptable, you can't smoke in many bars that you used to be able to smoke in, and child molestation victims are coming out. And good for them.

 

Alas - oops. I'm sorry that you had to scroll down a full screen-length to avoid the huge article again. And now you have to also read this irrelevant post, so I apologize for that in advance. Keep fighting the good forum-police fight.

 

Great post.

And right after your two posts, someone wonders if Allen molested other kids. SMDH.

Each "side" is cherry-picking would-be data and calling things "facts" despite presenting evidence in a subjective way -- just look at the word choice and the little added technically irrelevant details. The Vanity Fair hatchet column of facts is particularly biased, just in its tone. Just for example: a father likes looking at his naked baby daughter (when she is an infant). That's presented as a damning fact. Um, isn't that pretty universal? All my friends who have baby daughters like staring at them constantly, from what I can tell.

My only point is none of us know what happened. If you add all the stated facts from both sides, you just get a big confusing mess.

 

Typical for Major to screw up and then still be a little girl about it.

 

Where you also on the fence, using the same reasoning, in the case of Michael Jackson...?

 

What is that all about?