Allen Says He’s Exonerated by Abuse Report

Filmmaker Woody Allen said Thursday that a team of physicians and social workers has exonerated him of Mia Farrow’s allegation that he molested their adopted 7-year-old daughter.

“The conclusion is no molestation, no sexual abuse ever took place,” Allen said at a news conference in a courtyard of the Yale-New Haven Hospital. “There is a strong recommendation that Mia herself seek psychiatric help.”

Farrow, 47, looking pale and stricken, appeared before reporters and said just one sentence before quickly departing.

“I just want to say that I will always stand by my children,” she said.

Allen, 57, and his former leading lady ended their 12-year relationship explosively last summer when he disclosed that he was romantically involved with Farrow’s 22-year-old adopted daughter.

In addition to the child molestation dispute, Allen and Farrow are engaged in an angry custody battle over their 4-year-old biological son, Satchel; adopted daughter, Dylan, and adopted son, Moses, 14.

Farrow charged that Allen molested Dylan at the actress’ home in Bridgewater, Conn., last summer.

Farrow’s lawyer, Eleanor Alter, quickly disparaged the lengthy report that was relayed jointly to both Allen and Farrow during a conference at the hospital that lasted more than three hours.

The report is “incomplete and inaccurate,” Alter said, charging that the hospital team had “declined to meet with people whose information would have been vitally important to their findings.”

“Dylan has been consistent in the description of abuse and Miss Farrow will continue to support her,” the lawyer added.

Allen’s lawyers said the ruling strengthened his side in his custody battle with Farrow. Allen said he intended to seek custody of Dylan and his other children immediately.

The report also probably headed off any possible indictment by Connecticut prosecutors, who had ordered the special team to try to determine if child abuse had taken place.

The report was compiled by Dr. John Leventhal, a pediatrician and director of the child sexual abuse clinic at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and two clinical social workers trained to detect child sexual abuse. Leventhal had met with Allen, Farrow and Dylan since Thanksgiving.

Farrow’s lawyers have moved to void Allen’s adoptions of Moses and Dylan on grounds of fraud because he failed to disclose his “virtually incestuous relationship with their sister”--Soon-Yi Farrow Previn, one of the actress’ adopted daughters from her former marriage to conductor Andre Previn.

Allen charged that Farrow had “doctored” a videotape she made of Dylan making the allegations of child abuse and had made 10 copies of the tape to distribute.

“A terrible, terrible crime has been committed against my daughter,” he said.

“I feel that Eleanor Alter and Mia are going to have to really squirm to get out of this because they (the team members) have come to a decision that is an accurate one. It is the only one that they could have come to, that any responsible group would have come to.”

The report was not made public, and a spokesman for the hospital said both Farrow and Allen had asked that the team not discuss the nature of its evaluation.

However, Allen said he believed that the report could be made available to news organizations in the days ahead.

The filmmaker said the team had hypothesized that “under terrible stress . . . in a home where she has been held prisoner for eight months, this thought emerged in her (Dylan) . . . or possibly it was programmed into her as a deliberate ploy as often happens in child-custody cases.”

”. . . I believe this will turn everything around immediately,” he continued. “Whenever there is an allegation of child abuse . . . a person like myself has to suddenly demonstrate that this thing never happened. There is not a presumption of innocence on me. There is a presumption of guilty.”

Allen charged that Farrow was “very, very vindictive.”

“I doubt that any amount of personal conflict between Mia and myself can ever justify the horribleness in using children as a pawn in one’s vengeance,” he said.

The scene in the hospital’s red-brick courtyard could have matched any movie set used by Farrow and Allen. Patients and physicians, some with binoculars, peered out windows as the protagonists spoke at a podium crammed with microphones.

Reading a prepared statement, Alter said “we do not believe the child made these events up. But even allowing for that theory, the question why must be answered, and for that Mr. Allen will always be culpable.”

”. . . The trauma and psychological implications of Mr. Allen’s unhealthy and irresponsible affair with Dylan’s sister, Soon-Yi, can never be understated.”

A reporter asked Allen what he would do when he sees Dylan for the first time after more than eight months. A judge in New York had barred visitation until after the report was completed.

“I am going to hug her and demonstrate my affection in the usual overbearing parental way,” Allen said with a smile.

Copies of the report were sent immediately to the judge handling the custody case in New York and to Connecticut state prosecutor Frank Maco, who has the ultimate responsibility of deciding whether sufficient evidence exists to try Allen for sexual abuse.