Dylan Farrow Responds To The NY Times Columnist Who Questioned The Legitimacy Of Her Accusations Against Woody Allen

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A New York Times op-ed published on Saturday took steps to question the legitimacy of the accusations of sexual misconduct against Woody Allen. The piece from Bret Stephens seems to aim to give Allen the benefit of the doubt, pointing to information from an investigation made at the time to bring into question the accusations from Dylan Farrow and hold the director against alleged more heinous offenders.

Stephens’ commentary states that the claims against Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey are undeniably true, but those made against Allen aren’t supported by evidence and are therefore unreliable in some sense according to the column:

Dylan Farrow is a persuasive interviewee who seems absolutely sincere in her belief that she was molested by Allen as a child. Allen, by contrast, comes across as a grouchy neurotic who, in his late 50s, had a distasteful affair with Mia Farrow’s adopted, barely adult daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. In the contest of sympathies, it’s not hard to guess who wins.

But it’s precisely because Dylan’s account plays to our existing biases that we need to treat it with added skepticism. Most parents know that young children are imaginative and suggestible and innocently prone to making things up. The misuse of children’s memories by ambitious prosecutors against day-care center operators in the 1980s led to some of the worst miscarriages of justice in recent U.S. history. You don’t have to doubt Farrow’s honesty to doubt her version of events.

As Stephens adds, “If Allen is in fact a pedophile, he appears to have acted on his evil fantasies exactly once.” He also compares him to recently convicted child molester Larry Nassar at this point to cement his point. The column was criticized heavily online by those who feel that Woody Allen continues to elude justice, but the most damning criticism comes from Dylan Farrow herself. She responded to the column in a series of tweets and pointed to another thread that presented information she says that Stephens overlooked with his piece:

To presume I invented this story & convinced myself of it is no less insulting than calling me a liar. I’ve consistently stated the truth for 25 years, I won’t stop now. It’s Stephens’ right to doubt me if he so chooses but his incredulity doesn’t change what happened that day.

The information shared by Farrow shows details of the custody battle in Connecticut that pokes plenty of holes in the defense of Allen. She also includes the decision by the state prosecutor not to prosecute Allen out of concern for Farrow during a criminal proceeding.

The piece by Stephens is only the latest attempt to defend Allen against the accusations and shows that the debate isn’t set to be finished any time soon.

(Via New York Times / Dylan Farrow on Twitter)

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