Dylan's open letter in the New York Times

In February 2014, Dylan Farrow published an open letter in the New York Times, whose widespread dissemination gave rise to the widespread perception that Woody Allen had sexually abused her as a child. The letter is written in a very convincing tone and manner and directly addresses the reader, presenting certain events and product of Dylan's memory as a series of events. However, many of these facts are not true and, although she remembers them, there is sufficient evidence derived from the investigations to which the case was submitted in 1992 and 1993, which clearly indicate that the events did not happen as she tells them, did not happen as she remembers them.

1 / Dylan's narration of the alleged abuse: “when I was seven years old, Woody Allen took me by the hand and led me into a dim, closet-like attic on the second floor of our house. He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother’s electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted me. 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.”

It gives an impression of reality that essentially derives from the vivid memory that she maintains of having been lying on her stomach playing with an electric train of her brother that would be installed in the dim, closet-like attic. The memory of the train and the narration of how even today it is difficult to look at toy trains give us a very vivid impression of the scene and appear as a central element of the narration associated in Dylan's memory inseparably to the experience of sexual abuse However, everything indicates that it never took place and that it is the memory of something that never happened.

In the first place, it must be taken into account that the narration of the train does not appear in the original testimony or in the testimonies that Dylan gave during the six months of the investigation of the Child Abuse Clinic. In fact, the narration that Woody Allen told her to lie on her stomach and stay in that position does not match any of Dylan's previous narrations and the previous narrations are incompatible with staying in the same position observing how an electric toy train works.

In second place, it is necessary to remember the descriptions we have of "dim, closet-like attic". According to Maurren Orth was "not really an attic, just a small crawl space from the closet of Mia's bedroom," Mia Farrow described the area in a deposition made in 1992 as "a crawl space ... where the eave kind of drops." And Moses Farrow said that "It was an unfinished attic with exposed fi berglass insulation. It smelled of mothballs, and there were mouse traps and poison pellets left all around. My mother used it for storage where she kept several trunks full of hand-me-down clothes, that sort of thing. "

Dylan says it was his brother's "electric train." Dylan had three older brothers: Moses of 14 years, Matheew and Fletcher of 21 years. Moses has already said that there was no train there and, evidently, among other things that means that the train was not his. It seems unlikely that Mia Farrow's 21-year-old children had a train installed in the closet of Mom's room and, in any case, despite the time that has elapsed since Moses drew attention to the nonexistence of it, none of them has confirmed the existence of the train or that it was placed in that crawl space. No one from the family or outside of it has confirmed the existence of that train.

Finally, it can not be forgotten that Moses Farrow, who was then 14 years old, has declared with total clarity that the crawl space had no space to place an electric train and that, in fact, there was never an electric train installed in that place. Moses Farrow has also stated that that day, since Woody Allen arrived to make the visit until a few hours later Mia Farrow returned, he was watching and taking care of Dylan and that never, at any time, Dylan and Allen left the common areas of home. They were not alone at any time, nor Allen in any way abused the girl.

2 / Dylan's narration continues:

For as long as I could remember, my father had been doing things to me that I didn’t like. I didn’t like how often he would take me away from my mom, siblings and friends to be alone with him. I didn’t like it when he would stick his thumb in my mouth. I didn’t like it when I had to get in bed with him under the sheets when he was in his underwear. I didn’t like it when he would place his head in my naked lap and breathe in and breathe out. I would hide under beds or lock myself in the bathroom to avoid these encounters, but he always found me. These things happened so often, so routinely, so skillfully hidden from a mother that would have protected me had she known, that I thought it was normal. 

However, confronting this narrative with the facts that we know from the 1992 investigation it is easy to verify that Dylan is not remembering things that happened to her, she is assuming and narrating as her own the version of her mother's facts, even without the nuances that they must have been carried out in light of the evidence made during the trial.

Dylan identifies three behaviors that, according to her, her father performed, moving her away from her mother, brothers and friends: putting her thumb in her mouth, getting into her bed while he was wearing underwear and placing her head in her bare lap and breath.

The first thing that draws attention is that these behaviors were the problematic behaviors that Mia Farrow described at the trial and that she had not considered abusive nor had she detected any kind of negative reaction from Dylan ... until there was a break between her and Woody Allen. Therefore, it was not about behaviors that Woody Allen performed secretly, nor away Dylan from his mother. The coincidence between the behaviors that Mia Farrow reproached to Woody Allen and those that Dylan claims to be performing secretly raises another question: Is there an abuser who, when alone with the children, does exactly the same as when accompanied? Dylan's memory identifies some behaviors that his father did when he was alone with her, but those behaviors are the same as his mother used to say that Allen performed when Allen was with Dylan and with her (and whoever it was that was in that moment in the house). It does not seem that Dylan identifies and remembers what he did with his father, rather she repeats the things that she has heard that her father was reproached and has accommodated her memories to those stories. This fact finds its corroboration in the testimony of Ronan Farrow. Ronan says he remembers how, when he was five years old, he was worried about the things he saw his father do with Dylan, and among those things was to climb into Dylan's bed in the middle of the night and have her suck him finger. This memory of Ronan is false. Woody Allen did not spend the night in Mia Farrow's apartment and could not climb into Dylan's bed in the middle of the night. On the other hand, the split between Allen and Farrow came when Ronan had just turned four: any memory of his father on an unsupervised visit dates back to when Ronan was 3 years old. The point is that both Dylan and Ronan have incorporated into their memory some events that did not happen and have incorporated them from the narration (of the version) of the facts of their mother.

In the third place, it is necessary to highlight that not even the concrete behaviors of Woody Allen that now say remember coincide with what resulted from the investigation. These are distorted versions of the versions that Mia Farrow promoted among the public, but not those that were exposed and subjected to criticism in court. For example, Dylan says she remembers that her father put his finger in her mouth, but the result of the judicial investigation reveals that what was really attributed to Allen was that, on occasion (on a couple of occasions ), he had allowed the girl to take his finger and bring it to her mouth. In what situation? When he put Dylan to bed and, of course, while she was in bed and he was sitting by the bed, the girl calmly took his hand and sucked his finger, like a pacifier. This behavior has nothing to do or bears any relation to that which is insinuated in the mind when it is said that he put his thumb in her mouth. Another example we have in relation to games in bed. The court ruling indicates that Woody Allen read books to Dylan dressed only with undershorts, but makes no similar mention regarding the games in bed: when they played, Woody Allen was normally dressed. Also according to Mia Farrow, placing the head in Dylan's lap is one of the things that Allen did, what he did while she was present and, evidently, he did not do it when the girl was naked.

It is important to note that the conclusions regarding the behaviors of Woody Allen with Dylan were not taken lightly, that the behaviors that Dylan and Ronan now describe were not described in 1992 in spite of the meticulous research carried out independently by several institutions. Connecticut police interviewed Dylan on weekends between September and December 31 (four months!) Using anatomical dolls, the Yale New Haven Clinic team interviewed Dylan nine times, investigating both specifically her father's behavior with her, and the adoption case court put social workers in the house who attended and recorded any comments from Dylan about the way his father behaved towards her. In the same case the psychologist appointed by the judge also interviewed Dylan and we know that Mia Farrow had her interviewed by at least two other psychologists. In none of the cases did the behaviors that Dylan and Ronan believe they remember appear. Those behaviors, that specific way of behaving that Dylan and Ronan remember is not part of the facts that they lived and if we do not doubt that they do not remember, we can not doubt that it is a story that has been incorporated into his memory later.

3/ When I asked my mother if her dad did to her what Woody Allen did to me, I honestly did not know the answer. I also didn’t know the firestorm it would trigger. I didn’t know that my father would use his sexual relationship with my sister to cover up the abuse he inflicted on me. I didn’t know that he would accuse my mother of planting the abuse in my head and call her a liar for defending me. I didn’t know that I would be made to recount my story over and over again, to doctor after doctor, pushed to see if I’d admit I was lying as part of a legal battle I couldn’t possibly understand. At one point, my mother sat me down and told me that I wouldn’t be in trouble if I was lying – that I could take it all back. I couldn’t. It was all true. But sexual abuse claims against the powerful stall more easily. There were experts willing to attack my credibility. There were doctors willing to gaslight an abused child.

The first thing that needs to be clarified is that it is the accusation that takes Dylan from one doctor to another, from one interview to another, trying in one of those interviews to come up with a story that allows to base an accusation. It is the police who interview during consecutive four-month weekends; it is the experts of the prosecution who interviewed her on nine occasions, although in the first interview the girl had denied the abuse; It is her mother who takes her twice to the pediatrician (not without first questioning her for 24 hours in a way that "set a tone for a child about how to answer") because on the first occasion the girl had denied the abuse. It is her mother who takes her to at least two doctors who have never been identified and who were not called to testify at the trial (which seems a clear enough proof that they did not reach any conclusion that would allow corroborating the existence of abuse ). That is, Dylan was not taken from Doctor to Doctor to admit that she was lying, Dylan was taken from Doctor to Doctor to see It was possible to found credible  her account of the allegation of abuse. It was not.

In fact, Woody Allen and the lawyers of Woody Allen did not even have occasion to comment on the appointment of any of the Doctors. All were chosen and all received preliminary information from the police or directly from Mia Farrow herself. They all charged their fees to the police or to Mia Farrow. Dylan's memories do not correspond to reality and are distorted, apparently, to give an explanation to the fact that none of those doctors-not even one-was able to conclude that there had been abuse. The facts have been reconstructed in the narrative that has given rise to the memory of Dylan, assuming that the doctors were looking for her to admit that she was lying, when in reality the doctors who interviewed her sought to corroborate her story. But there is no doubt that the events did not happen as Dylan remembers.

Dylan makes another mention in her letter that involves a complete distortion of the original facts. In 1992 none of the professionals who interviewed Dylan concluded that sexual abuse had occurred, trying to find an explanation for Dylan's allegation and taking into account that in December 1992 Dylan stated that she and Satchel had seen during the summer of the previous year. (1991) Woody Allen having sex with Soon Yi, some thought that the girl might have been confused to witness that sexual interaction and had fantasized about it. However, this interpretation of the facts arose, was exposed and maintained exclusively from professionals who acted in favor of Mia Farrow and / or who believed the version of the facts that she provided, and was frontally rejected by Woody Allen and by Soon Yi Why? Because Woody Allen and Soon Yi always stated that Dylan's account of that sexual encounter between them was false, that on the date that the girl claimed to have witnessed the sexual encounter they still did not have sex as a couple. Evidently, he also pointed out that it would never occur to them to have sexual relations with the two children in the house, much less leave the doors open. Therefore, Woody Allen did not use the relationship with Soon Yi to cover up the abuse, it was the experts and professionals dependent on Mia Farrow who gave credibility and publicly extended that possibility due to the inconsistencies of Dylan's testimony that indicated that she had never suffered sexual abuse, in the face of the resounding refusal of Woody Allen. The judicial investigation just showed that the relationship between Woody Allen and Soon Yi began in December 1991 and the meeting that Dylan narrated as happened in the summer of 1991 never took place.

In 1992/93 Dylan was not examined or interviewed by any expert commissioned by her father, nor by an expert who was paid by her father, nor by an expert who had any relationship with her father. It is false that there were experts willing to attack her credibility or make her gas light. All the experts who interviewed her were from the police or from her mother, and Woody Allen had no intervention either in their designation of them or in their work; in fact, several of them were only known by Mia Farrow herself.

4/ After a custody hearing denied my father visitation rights, my mother declined to pursue criminal charges, despite findings of probable cause by the State of Connecticut – due to, in the words of the prosecutor, the fragility of the “child victim.” Woody Allen was never convicted of any crime. That he got away with what he did to me haunted me as I grew up. I was stricken with guilt that I had allowed him to be near other little girls. I was terrified of being touched by men. I developed an eating disorder. I began cutting myself. That torment was made worse by Hollywood. All but a precious few (my heroes) turned a blind eye. Most found it easier to accept the ambiguity, to say, “who can say what happened,” to pretend that nothing was wrong. Actors praised him at awards shows. Networks put him on TV. Critics put him in magazines. Each time I sawmy abuser’s face – on a poster, on a t-shirt, on television – I could only hide my panic until I found a place to be alone and fall apart.

It is not true that the judge denied Woody Allen the right to visit. The judge suspended the visits in principle for six months until Dylan improved and if the visits were not resumed it was because after the time that had been agreed Dylan said that she did not want to see his father while he maintained his relationship with Soon Yi. In December of 1996, when Woody Allen and Soon Yi had been in a relationship for five years, they demanded that Woody Allen break off his relationship with Soon Yi to see Dylan again. That is the reason why the visits were permanently suspended.

The Connecticut prosecutor stated that he believed he had probable cause, but that he was aware that not even in the custody trial that has a less demanding standard of proof than proof beyond a reasonable doubt had it been possible to consider proven the abuse. Even worse, the prosecutor in reviewing the evidence of the custody case had found that essentially it was the same as he had in the police investigation and not only could not say that the judge had interpreted it in a biased manner in favor of Woody Allen, but had to recognize that the judge had interpreted it against Allen ... and even then he had not been able to conclude the existence of abuse. That is why the prosecutor expressly acknowledged that he could not subject the child to the rigors and uncertainties of a QUESTIONABLE PROSECUTION. Actually, the risk of subjecting Dylan to the rigors of questionable prosecution did not exist. By the time Maco made his decision not to prosecute Woody Allen, the prosecution experts had already concluded that there was no abuse and the expert hired by Mia Farrow had already declared in the custody case that it was not possible to conclude that abuse had occurred. When the experts of the prosecution and the alleged victim declare in favor of innocence, it is impossible for a judge to initiate prosecution.

Dylan did not suffer victimization as a result of alleged abuse during the processing of the procedure, nor during the following year and still in 1996 and 1997 what concerned Dylan and the reason why Dylan refused to see his father had nothing to do with the allegation of abuse, had to do with Allen's relationship with Soon Yi. Dylan was examined by experts from the prosecution, by social service experts, by various unnamed experts hired by her mother, by the expert appointed by the court in the adoption case and her life was overseen by designated social workers by the court. Under this scrutiny and at least until December 1996, no consequence or victimization resulted from the assumption and four years later the reason that Dylan gave to refuse to see Allen had nothing to do with the allegation and abuse, whose existence or Alleged consequences are not even mentioned in Dylan's therapist's report or in the court ruling.

These are the facts, which do not resemble at all what Dylan narrates in her letter. I do not think it can be doubted that Dylan believes that what she says is true and we can verify in Ronan's statements similar deformations of the facts, but it is not true. What Dylan narrates does not come from her memory of his experience, it is the product of a reworking that omits essential facts and replaces them with incorrect interpretations. What Dylan remembers is a biased narration of the facts, not the facts themselves.