Woody Allen;s to respond to sex abuse allegations in NYT op-ed

USPA News - Woody Allen is writing an op-ed piece for the New York Times to respond to renewed sexual abuse allegations from his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow, the newspaper reported on Wednesday, the same day the woman`s brother sided with the American film director. Dylan Farrow, 28, discussed the allegations publicly for the first time on Saturday in an open letter published by the New York Times, claiming she was sexually abused by Allen when she was seven years old.

Allen is now working on his own op-ed piece that he will submit to the New York Times. "They asked and we said, `Yes, send it in,`" said Andrew Rosenthal, the newspaper`s editorial page editor, who noted that the piece will be subject to its editing process before approval. "Normally, we don`t publish a direct response [as a full Op-Ed article]. In this case, it was so personal, we thought that we should do it." It was not immediately clear when the op-ed piece could be ready for publication, and Allen`s spokeswoman Leslee Dart did not immediately respond to requests for comment, though she earlier indicated a response was forthcoming. "Mr. Allen has read the article and found it untrue and disgraceful. He will be responding very soon," she said on Sunday. Also on Wednesday, Allen`s adopted son and Dylan`s adopted brother Moses Farrow spoke out to defend his father against the allegations. He accused his mother, Mia Farrow, of turning him against his father. "My mother drummed it into me to hate my father for tearing apart the family and sexually molesting my sister," Moses was quoted as saying by PEOPLE Magazine. The child abuse allegations first surfaced in 1992 after his long-time girlfriend, actress Mia Farrow, discovered Allen was having an affair with her then 19- or 21-year-old adopted Korean daughter, Soon-Yi. She made the discovery by finding nude photos of Soon-Yi at Allen`s home, but the film director later defended the relationship, saying he had never lived with Mia and was not a father figure to Soon-Yi. It would later ensue a bitter and highly-publicized custody battle for Allen`s three children with Mia Farrow, whose allegations that Dylan was sexually abused triggered a police investigation. But doctors found no physical evidence of sexual abuse and the Connecticut State Police filed no charges, although New York Supreme Court Justice Elliott Wilk expressed his doubts over those findings. The allegations were all but forgotten after Allen lost the custody battle and continued his successful career, which recently earned him the prestigious Cecil B. DeMille Oscar for "outstanding contributions" to the world of entertainment. He also married Soon-Yi in the Italian city of Venice in December 1997. In Dylan`s recent letter, she detailed the alleged abuse, saying: "He talked to me while he did it, whispering that I was a good girl, that this was our secret, promising that we`d go to Paris and I`d be a star in his movies. I remember staring at that toy train, focusing on it as it traveled in its circle around the attic. To this day, I find it difficult to look at toy trains." On Sunday, Allen`s attorney Elkan Abramowitz also responded to the renewed allegations, blaming Mia Farrow. "It is tragic that after 20 years a story engineered by a vengeful lover resurfaces after it was fully vetted and rejected by independent authorities. The one to blame for Dylan`s distress is neither Dylan nor Woody Allen," he said.