A deeper look at the testimony of the three nannies.

A DEEPER LOOK AT THE TESTIMONY OF THE THREE NANNIES

One of the fundamental arguments put forward by those who defend that Dylan Farrow's account of alleged abuses must be believed was first published by Vanity Fair, and has been used by Dylan Farrow herself recently. We are going to examine it in some detail starting from its original formulation:

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 friend's babysitter 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.

As we shall see, these allegations of abuse are not more consistent with the testimony of the witnesses than the version of the facts provided by Allen, and consistency issues of the statements themselves, which should be taken into account, are being ignored. Finally, several of the statements are totally useless to assess the facts, but they are presented —falsely— as if they supported the alleged abuses. Let us examine what we know of the three testimonies.

1.      The testimony of the nanny Kristi Groteke

The first thing that needs to be clarified is that Woody Allen's testimony is equally consistent with that of the adults who were in the house. It is not that the nannies' testimony corroborates one version and contradicts the other. No testimony places Allen with Dylan alone during the alleged disappearance, nor did anyone see them climbing the stairs to the top floor of the country house, nor did anyone see them coming down. What is even more amazing: on August 4 nobody noticed that Allen and Dylan had "disappeared" for those ten, fifteen or twenty minutes.

The nanny (Kristi Groteke) told a colleague (Monica Thompson) that she had not lost sight of Dylan all afternoon [i]. That is what Monica Thompson declared, and the nanny herself acknowledged, in the book of memories about that period which Groteke wrote after the trial (ii). Then, how was the conclusion reached that Allen and Dylan had "disappeared" for 15 or 20 minutes? Well, through a reconstruction made by the three nannies several days after the events. Apparently, when they got together to review what had happened that day, Kristi Groteke realized that there was a moment when she looked for Dylan inside the house and did not find her; then she thought Dylan would be out with the other two nannies. She did not check it right away, but while reviewing the events together, the three caretakers decided that at that moment Dylan was not out of the house, and that between the time they saw Dylan for the last time and the moment they found her outside of the house fifteen or twenty minutes may have passed.

Therefore, we have two groups of babysitters (Kristi Groteke, on one hand, and the French tutor and the other nanny, on the other) who are not in the same place and do not communicate during the entire period of the alleged disappearance. An interesting fact is that at no time is it indicated that Dylan was missing, "between 5 pm and 5:30 pm", for example. Why is it interesting? Because it indicates that in their reconstruction of the afternoon the nannies were not able to indicate what time it was in any of their clocks at the time of the supposed disappearance.

Let us think about it. There are two separate groups of people who do not communicate with each other, and each one thinks that Dylan and Allen are with the other. How can they reach the conclusion that this was not the case if group A does not know what time she saw Dylan or Allen for the last time nor what time it was when she looked for Dylan without finding her, and group B does not know at what time they came to be with them? Moreover, group B does not know at what time the nanny of group A thought that Dylan was with them.

How is it possible to know that Dylan and Allen were 15 or 20 minutes by themselves? Actually, it is not possible. If group B does not know what time Dylan joined, nor whether she did it at the same time as Allen, it is impossible for them to know if Kristi Groteke was looking for them at that time. The only possibility of reaching that conclusion would be that both groups had clocks, that both did consult them and, therefore, that they could tell us at what time —or between what times— the "disappearance" occurred.

But that is not the case. Therefore, in order to reconstruct the afternoon, the nannies had to use their own subjective time estimates starting from a common event (perhaps the very separation of the nannies, which would be the last common event). Those time estimates were independent of each other. On the one hand, we have the estimate provided by Groteke, who was alone inside the house (a question of some interest here is: given the fact that she had received explicit instructions not to lose sight of Dylan, what was she doing inside the house by herself?). On the other hand, we have the subjective time estimate provided by the other two caretakers, who were outside the house in charge of four children. Needless to say, this way of reconstructing the steps taken on day 4 —if it has any use at all, which is rather doubtful— is enormously limited and subject to a huge margin of error, since it is easily affected by the expectations of the people who carry out the reconstruction. If what you are looking for is a period of time in which neither of the groups saw Dylan or Allen, you will find it, whether or not it exists.

On the other hand, there are no concordant testimonies: what exists is a reconstruction based on separate testimonies. If nanny A says "I think I saw Allen for the last time a half hour after X, then I looked for them and they were not around" and nanny B says "well I think I first saw Dylan about 50 minutes after X", there is no agreement between those two declarations. What nanny B says does not confirm that nanny A actually saw Dylan 45 minutes after X, and what nanny A says does not rule out that nanny B did not actually see Dylan only 30 minutes after X.

Finally, Dylan's account of the alleged abuses is not fully compatible with the statement of nanny Kristi Groteke. According to the court ruling, the nanny looked for Dylan throughout the house before assuming she was out with the other nanny. Why did not Dylan hear about this search? Let us assume it is reasonable for the nanny not to go to the small attic to look for her, but she definitely checked the main room and if she searched and called Dylan there, why did not Dylan hear her? Moreover, nothing in Dylan's account suggests that Allen heard anyone looking for Dylan and asked the girl to keep silent, or stopped the train to avoid making noise.

Kristi Groteke's experiences during those days are interesting in many ways; one of them is that Mia never reproached her or asked her how it was possible that Woody Allen had been alone with the girl despite her recent explicit instructions against it. She did not ask her whether it was possible that the alleged abuse had happened: she told her it had happened. And several days after the events, the nanny met with the other two people who were in the house to "reconstruct the afternoon" and arrived at the conclusion that there were between 15 and 20 unaccounted minutes in which none of them had been with Dylan or Allen (iii). As already mentioned, before being forced to "reconstruct" the afternoon on account of her boss's sexual abuse allegations, the nanny had told a colleague that she had not lost sight of Dylan. None of the testimonies indicates that Allen and Dylan were together during that time, nor that they were found together or at the same time.

Kristi Groteke herself wrote about it in her book:

To tell the truth, in my heart I hadn't the foggiest notion of whether or not that molestation ever took place.

By the way, none of these testimonies contradicts the testimony of Moses Farrow in People, since no one asked the children to reconstruct the chronology of the day. The essential part of Moses' statement is much simpler: there was no train in that attic so it is impossible for Dylan to remember that a train made its way around the attic while Allen sexually abused her. Until today, no one has responded to this statement by Moses. On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that Monica Thompson already declared in 1993 that Moses had told her that he believed Mia Farrow was responsible for Dylan's accusations (iv).

Kristi Groteke was neither fired nor reprimanded by Mia Farrow for leaving Dylan unattended despite her express orders: rather, she became her most trusted person in the care of the children for the following year, and Mia Farrow delivered documentation and materials for Groteke to write a book.

2.      The French tutor testimony that Dylan was without underwear

This testimony is presented as if it supported or was "consistent" with the existence of some kind of sexual abuse. However this is totally false. Dylan has never indicated that Allen took off her underwear. According to Kristi Groteke, Dylan never explained what happened to the underwear. There is no mention of that fact either in relation to the alleged episode of abuse or in the tape that Mia Farrow recorded, nor in the Yale New Haven sessions, nor in the sessions with the police, nor in any of the modern versions of the story that Dylan has provided. Obviously, if the absence of underwear has nothing to do with the alleged abuse according to Dylan's own narrative, then the absence of underwear cannot be used to "validate" that the abuses existed. The absence of underwear —and the testimony of the French teacher about it— is simply irrelevant and neither confirms nor validates anything.

Moreover, what the absence of underwear may indicate is that Dylan "slipped away" to get rid of it unobserved. Perhaps she was embarrassed because the underwear was stained, or perhaps she thought her mother was going to scold her if she got dirty. The fact is that it seems that Dylan was able to dispose of her underwear without any of her caregivers (or anyone) noticing. She may have disappeared for a few minutes in order to discard her panties in such a way that they would never be found again. At what point would Dylan be free to go where she wanted and elude the vigilance of all elders? It seems that the ideal moment would be when Allen went to the toilet. In this way, it is perfectly possible that the two "disappeared" for a few minutes but were not together. In any case, she had to dedicate several minutes of the period in which she had been supposedly out of the adult's radar to do away with her underwear.

3.      The testimony of the nanny who claims to have seen Allen with his head resting on Dylan's lap

Once again, the way of presenting the facts leads the reader to think that there is some relationship between the episode in the TV room (the head resting on the lap) and the alleged episode of abuse, when it is not true. On the one hand, the ruling considers the TV room episode to be proven fact and does not consider it to contain any kind of abuse. On the other hand, it should be evident that, if abuse had taken place, the nanny would have immediately sounded the alarm (Mia Farrow tells us in her memoirs that this nanny was also clearly instructed not to leave Allen alone with the children).

Finally and even more importantly, the ruling clearly states that there is no relationship, nor even temporary continuity, between the television room episode and the alleged abuses. Indeed, judge Wilk clearly speaks of "at other time of the day," which means that whatever happened in the TV room was not any kind of sexual abuse, nor did it result in any kind of sexual abuse. From what we know, it is reasonable to suppose that, had the abuse taken place, the nanny would have warned her colleagues, that they would all have entered the room and that they would have left the place together.

In either case, there is neither "consistency" nor confirmation —nor, in fact, any relationship— between this testimony and the alleged episode of abuse.

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[i] http://articles.latimes.com/1993-02-02/news/mn-952_1_woody-allen

Thompson said that the next day Kristie Groteke, Dylan's baby-sitter, drove her to the bus, and her fellow employee was "very upset." "She told me that she felt guilty allowing Ms. Farrow to say those things about Mr. Allen. (Groteke) said the day Mr. Allen spent with the kids, she did not have Dylan out of her sight for longer than five minutes. She did not remember Dylan being without her underwear."

[ii] Mia & Woody. Love and Betrayal. Kristi Groteke with Marjorie Rosen, Rd First Carrol  & Graf, 1994, pag 126.

The alleged molestation, Monica said, had occurred two days earlier, on Tuesday, August 4, 1992. However, Monica knew only the sketchiest details of what had supposedly transpired. Although she had been working for Mia for seven years, they weren't close at all and so I played dumb and agreed with her. Yes, I said, Mia must have been stretching the truth. And no, I didn't remember leaving Dylan alone with Woody.

[iii] Mia & Woody. Love and Betrayal. Kristi Groteke with Marjorie Rosen, Rd First Carrol  & Graf, 1994, pag 129.

The truth is, when we retraced our steps that day, there were only fifteen to twenty minutes in which Dylan was out of my sight, Sophie's, Casey's, or Alison's. Of course, those are the suspect "twenty minutes" when, Mia alleges, the molestation must have occurred.

[iv]  http://articles.latimes.com/1993-02-02/news/mn-952_1_woody-allen

Thompson added that on one occasion almost immediately after the alleged incident, Moses, 14, another child Allen and Farrow adopted, indicated doubts about what, if anything, had taken place. "Moses came over to me and said that he believes that Ms. Farrow had made up the accusation that was being said by Dylan," Thompson said in an affidavit.

LA CONDUCTA INADECUADA DE WOODY ALLEN EN LA SENTENCIA DE WILK Y APELACION

WHAT EVIDENCE OF THE JUDGMENT OF CUSTODY REFERRED FRAN MACO BY SAYING THAT IT HAD NO PROBATORY FORCE?

A FIRST APPROACH TO JUDGE WILK'S DECISION THAT DOESN´T LOOK LIKE WHAT YOU USUALLY READ


THE SUPPOSED AND IMPROBABLE REFUTATION THAT JESSICA WINTER MAKES OF BOB WEIDE

THE TESTIMONY OF DYLAN FARROW

If you want to know more about what happened on August 4, 1993

ITHE DECISION OF THE PROSECUTOR OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT, FRAN MACO, NOT TO INITIATE A PENAL PROCEDURE AGAINST ALLEN FOR THE ALLEGED ABUSES TO DYLAN FARROW

SOME CAVEATS ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF DYLAN'S STATEMENTS. CONNECTICUT POLICE INTERVIEWED HER FOR WEEKS USING HIGHLY BIASED TECHNIQUES

RE-UPDATED THE TRUTH ABOUT THE TEN "UNDENIABLE FACTS" OF VANITY FAIR IN RELATION TO THE ALLEGATION OF SEXUAL ABUSE OF DYLAN FARROW AGAINST WOODY ALLEN.

PRESENTATION

Ronan Farrow's memory

A DEEPER LOOK AT THE TESTIMONY OF THE THREE NANNIES.