I want to be friends.
You will not let me get in.
You have to,
it's way beyond that now.
What you've done to Soon-Yi.
What you've done to Dylan.
What you've done to Dylan,
Dylan's a baby.
How could you do that to her?
I don't know anything of the kind.
I know what Dylan tells me.
You've told me nothing but lies.
Dylan tells the truth and consistently.
- But you know that I didn't
- I don't know that, Woody.
I've always been worried
about you and Dylan.
And I didn't know the doctor
had to report this to the authorities.
I didn't know that.
I went to be sure she was all right.
And she's not all right, Woody.
She walks around the house
holding her vag*na.
She sleeps with me.
She's scared of you.
And you hurt her.
Now I feel pretty guilty myself
that I wasn't there to protect her.
She said,
"Mommy, you didn't help me."
She said,
"Daddy shouldn't have done that.
He shouldn't have hurt me
like that.
If you heard her
you would weep inside,
and you would
just want to be dead.
Because I don't know
how you can live with what you did.
This is a story of two
of the biggest stars in the world.
The father is Woody Allen,
writer, director, actor.
The mother is Mia Farrow,
his frequent co-star,
and the mother of his three children,
two of them adopted.
Woody and Mia
have been together for 12 years
but never married
and kept separate residences.
She reportedly has a video
of their adopted daughter Dylan
explaining how Allen molested her.
Allen denies child abuse,
but freely admits
he's in love with another of Farrow's
daughters, 21-year-old Soon-Yi.
Allen said the newest allegations
are the bizarre concoctions
of a woman scorned.
Miss Farrow's only concern
have been exclusively
the protection of her children.
ALLEN V. FARROW
Episode 3
The private lives of Woody Allen
and the Farrow family
would become very public
in August of 1992.
A series of investigations
and lawsuits followed,
which generated tens of thousands
of court and police documents,
most of which were never made public
or obtained by the press.
One cache of more
than 60 boxes of documentation
was hidden away
in an attorney storage room,
untouched since the '90s.
Over the course
of our three-year investigation
we gained access to those boxes,
along with police files of the case,
additional evidence, affidavits,
sworn testimony,
and private audio and video recordings.
After the incident in the attic,
the next day
I took Dylan to the doctor.
She didn't really know the pediatrician
up here in Connecticut that well
and she sure
didn't want to talk about it.
He didn't want to pressure her,
and he said:
"No problem. Why don't you
come back tomorrow?"
When we got in the car
and I said:
"Did you want to tell him
what you told me? Do you feel?"
And she said, "I don't like
to talk about my privates."
And I'm, like, "I get that.
But it would be helpful
if you could tell him,
because then we would have somebody
who could make sure you are okay."
So then the next day
we went back
and she did tell the doctor
what happened.
And then we went home.
And we were all outside
and I got a call from the doctor.
And he said, "I just wanted to tell
you that I've told the police."
I remember when I took the phone call
I made the kids get out of the water.
So they were making sand castles
and covering their feet with sand.
And I saw a little robin
was hopping on the grass.
And I'm holding the phone
thinking it all looked so normal,
but nothing will ever
be normal ever again.
Dylan's pediatrician had submitted
a report of suspected sexual abuse,
and a series of legal actions
were initiated in two states.
In New York,
the Farrows' legal residence,
the City Child Welfare Administration
opened an investigation.
While in Connecticut,
where the crime had occurred,
the state police
also opened a criminal investigation,
which was overseen
by state prosecutor, Frank Maco.
I received a call
from my office with a complaint,
alleged sexual abuse
on one Woody Allen.
I met with the members
of the Connecticut State Police.
I said, I want to make sure
that we're not talking
about some type of a Hollywood
relationship that had gone bad.
Next thing you know, crime squad trucks
rolling down our driveway.
They went to do
whatever they do in the attic,
collecting hair
and stuff like that.
What I remember
is that after the attic
things really started changing
very rapidly.
I said this thing,
and it started this nightmare
of lawyers and the phone ringing,
and everything changed.
Woody's not about
to change his ways.
He's where he is every Monday night,
Michael's Pub here in Manhattan.
Steve Powers is there right now.
Steve?
It was as if Woody Allen was trying
to play it cool by playing his clarinet,
as he does every Monday night
over here at Michael's Pub.
He went up on the bandstand
and joined the band
in some playing with a full house.
But earlier there was an indication
everything wasn't just fine,
when Woody left his apartment
at 74th Street and 5th venue.
He had no comment.
Woody, could you give us
a comment, Woody?
Anything about
the Bridgewater charges, Woody?
My office
and the Connecticut State Police,
we wanted to do
our investigation
quietly and as effectively as possible,
professionally as possible.
Next thing I know
at the Plaza Hotel
Mr. Allen calls a news conference
and announces he's subject
of a Connecticut State Police
investigation into abuse.
Thank you for coming.
Over the years you know that I've been
reluctant to speak with the press
and have assiduously
avoided publicity.
But because of all the rumors,
and innuendos,
and cruel untruths circulating
over the past week
I feel that I have
to make a statement.
This is an unconscionable
and gruesomely damaging manipulation
of innocent children for vindictive
and self-serving purposes.
In the end the one thing
I have been guilty of
is falling in love
with Ms. Farrow's adult daughter
Woody gave a press conference
where he talked about being
wildly in love with Soon-Yi,
and our jaws all dropped.
He said to Mia, "I don't love Soon-Yi",
I heard him say this:
"This was just a silly little fling.
I'm not in love with her."
There's a calculated reason
why love enters the picture.
He's trying to distract.
This is a woman scorned.
This is an unhinged woman.
That's Woody's narrative.
He turned it all back,
turned it upside down and around,
and focused
on his relationship with Soon-Yi.
And the media
ran with that story.
One day after Woody Allen
acknowledge a love affair
with de 21 year-old adopted daughter
of his one time companion
and leading lady Mia Farrow,
the usually very private filmmaker
went public.
Allen says he feels
no great moral dilemma
over his admitted relationship
with Soon-Yi Previn Farrow.
In a written statement Allen says,
"Regarding my love for Soon-Yi,
it's real and happily all true.
He added that Mia Farrow
was so irate
when Allen fell in love with Farrow's
adopted college-age daughter, Soon-Yi,
that Farrow
concocted the abuse charges.
I would love to see Dylan and Satchel,
and you know that.
So you're not willing
to try to go back
and try to undo some of this,
and see if we can't
- What could be undone?
- Take it out of the public arena.
- Yes.
- Let's get it private.
I'd love to take it out
of the public arena.
But when you say
"take it out of the public arena"
But let's stop insulting
each other through other people.
I mean, you know, in fact we
It's not out of the public arena
when you're doing an interview
with Newsweek.
I was told you were doing
an interview with Newsweek.
I'm not doing
an interview with Newsweek, no.
In Time and Newsweek
Allen struck the latest blow
in this w*r waged with sound bites
and spicy quotes.
Over the past week
Allen's trial-by-tabloid
has captivated
the national psyche.
I was a general assignment reporter
back in the '90s
when we heard that Mia Farrow's
adopted daughter
might be having an affair
with Woody Allen.
And the way he spun it
was just perfect.
Don't forget,
Woody Allen at that time
had some really high-powered people
in his court.
Elkan Abramowitz, his attorney,
big, big attorney,
and he had a very powerful
PR machine behind him.
They were doing a great job
painting Mia Farrow
as a scorned woman
who would say anything.
But we had to follow the leads,
and sometimes it took us to a place
that Woody Allen was not happy.
Here at the Episcopal School
on Manhattan's East Side
sources tell us that Woody Allen
was so obsessed with Dylan,
who was then three years-old,
that parents and teachers
began talking about how Allen
would sit in the doorway
positioned to watch little Dylan
in the classroom.
We were one of a few journalists
who gave the other side.
Woody immediately
got onto the cover of Time,
the cover of Newsweek,
the cover of People,
and Mia wasn't really speaking.
I thought to myself, there has
to be another side to the story.
She was not giving interviews
so I had to find people close to her.
I spoke to Andre Previn,
her previous husband.
I spoke to the tutors.
I spoke to the babysitters.
One of the things
that was interesting to me
was that Mia didn't want
these allegations to be true
because this was completely
unraveling her entire life.
I was told by several different
people that she said,
"You know, Dylan,
we all make up stories.
If this didn't happen you really
need to tell me it didn't happen,
or maybe you think
it happened and"
And she says,
"No, it happened.
And if he says
it didn't happen he's lying."
So this little girl would never
back down from the story.
I also found out that Woody
refused to submit
to the state police's
lie detector test.
The Connecticut State Police
indicated that Woody Allen
had taken a polygraph
by a private polygrapher.
I said, "I'm not interested. I want
a state police polygrapher to take it,"
and he refused.
So I did not get
what I had requested,
which was a polygraph
by the Connecticut State Police.
If I have a shred of belief left
in you, then help me now.
Tell me where you were
for those 20 minutes.
- That will all be
- But why can't you just tell me now?
It will all be all the details
when the time comes.
No, now. Why can't you
just tell me, help me now?
when the time comes,
and the truth will come out.
Woody, tell me where you were!
People scoured the house.
Every single room was searched.
You could help me a lot.
all about that eventually
- Why don't you just tell me?
- all about it.
Be logical about this.
I'm 57.
Isn't it illogical that I'm going
to pick this moment in my life
to become a child molester?
It's just incredible.
if I wanted to be a child molester
I had many opportunities in the past.
Why would Allen's 7-year-old daughter
tell a Connecticut doctor otherwise?
Either she has been coached
methodically to
tell this story, because
- By Mia?
- By Mia, yeah.
Overnight almost there
he is on everything,
on the cover of every magazine,
on every kind of show,
saying that I had coached Dylan
and all these things.
She's been using her friends
on both coasts
to say terrible things about me
and to lie about
I didn't feel that it was seemly
to get into
a public fight with him.
In a statement
Farrow told NBC News
she wouldn't be interviewed
about Woody Allen for this story
and asked that her friends
not talk to us about Allen either.
I just had to keep my focus
on the kids
and try to keep them safe,
and try to keep whatever semblance
of normal that we could
under the circumstances.
There were helicopters
flying low to take pictures,
and the kids
couldn't go anywhere.
And it was terrifying.
If we left the house they would
follow us wherever we were going.
And it was scary.
At the Farrow home in Connecticut,
and elsewhere,
family members
were rallying to Mama Mia's side.
She's my mother
and she's the best mother there is.
Any statement saying that she is unfit
to be a mother is completely ridiculous.
She is a marvelous mother,
a fine woman,
and she's just got a moral foundation
that's just unbreakable
and we're all rocks
and we're all staying together
we're gonna fight this thing
till we win.
We didn't need help turning
against him. He did it to himself.
And his accusation that my mother
is an unfit mother is absurd.
Anybody who knows
my mother knows that.
Woody appeared to have
what were unlimited resources
and hired private investigators.
And people were following us around,
and going through garbage,
and looking for anything
that there's a weakness here
that I can exploit to say,
"Hold on a minute,
she's not the great parent she's
asserting herself to be. Look at this."
I definitely felt
like I was followed a few times,
when I was coming from Mia's
apartment back to my apartment,
or if I was taking the children out.
One night I was coming home
from some friends,
and I was being followed.
So I didn't even go home.
I took some twists and turns
and still this person was following me.
I went all the way into the neighboring
town and it became really scary.
Woody Allen's team hired
multiple private investigators
to uncover compromising information
about Mia's family,
as well as the
Connecticut State detectives
who had been assigned
to the case.
I met with the members
of the Connecticut State Police,
instructed them
to continue their investigation.
I said,
"I want this child evaluated."
I wanted some type of opinion
as to whether or not my bringing
her into the criminal justice system,
putting her on the stand,
in any way would traumatize her.
And want to know are there any
impediments to the child's ability
to take the stand
and testify in court.
So I suggested the Yale Child Sexual
Abuse Clinic to do the examination.
They were going to assist me
insofar as determining
whether or not there
were any impediments
as to the child's ability
to perceive, recall, and relate.
The Yale New Haven team
was led by Dr. John Leventhal,
who at that time was the director
of the Yale New Haven Hospital
Child Sexual Abuse Clinic.
The team also included
two social workers,
Julia Hamilton
and Jennifer Sawyer.
Records show that Sawyer and Hamilton
interviewed Dylan nine times
over a three-month period.
I would meet with some adults
who would show me
an anatomically-correct doll
and ask me
where daddy touched me.
And I would repeat the story over,
and over, and over again.
It was grueling and it was intense,
and I hated it.
Their examination
went on for seven months.
And then I received a call
that the Yale Child Sexual Abuse Clinic
made a decision, and I am given
the bottom-line conclusion
that the child is unreliable,
untrustworthy,
and/or that Mia Farrow
was a fabricator of this incident.
The report stated there were
"inconsistencies" in Dylan's statements,
and that she had "difficulty
distinguishing fantasy from reality."
The report also stated
that Dylan's accusations were
"likely reinforced and encouraged by her
mother who was enraged with Mr. Allen."
Without notifying Frank Maco,
who had commissioned the report,
Yale New Haven met
with Mia Farrow and Woody Allen
and informed them
of the results of the report.
Next thing I know
the Yale New Haven team
presented the findings to Allen,
the suspect of the investigation,
and allowed him to announce the results
publicly on the steps of the hospital.
They've come to a decision
that I can say is an accurate one.
Certainly I never, ever
abused my daughter.
There was no sexual abuse
that ever took place,
and that the it was either
an imagined thing
or a concocted thing.
Why do you call the accused
and have a press conference
on the steps of the hospital
to "clear him"
when you don't give it
to the state attorney to do that?
He was the one who commissioned it.
It wasn't their purview to do that.
Today's report,
if it is as Allen describes it,
seems to remove any possibility
he'd face criminal charges.
The report also says that the child
may have made this story up.
But the experts also allow
for the possibility in their report
that Farrow may have coached
the child to tell this story.
In the report the experts recommend
that Farrow receive therapy now
for what it characterized
as her "extremely disturbed"
relationship with 7-year-old Dylan.
I had to come forward
and say, "Wait a minute.
I find nothing
indicating that Mia Farrow
is in any way fabricating, controlling,
or manipulating this child.
There's nothing to show us that.
I just want to say that I will always
stand by my children.
Did you make it up?
Did you make up that story?
I was contacted
by Ms. Farrow's attorney
shortly after the Yale report
came out.
Ms. Farrow's lawyer
was concerned about the report,
and she asked me if I could read it
and tell her what I thought.
I read the report
and I was horrified.
And I testified in court
about the report.
They interviewed this child
nine times.
Even in the early '90s nobody
interviewed a child of any age
amidst an allegation
of sexual abuse nine times.
You don't interview a child
about the same allegation
over and over and over again.
You interview the child the least
amount of times as possible,
so as not to re-traumatize the child.
The more I was asked the same
question over and over,
the more I started to wonder
what do they want from me,
and feeling like the more
I said the same thing, that
it was the wrong answer,
that I was being treated like I was
lying.
If I'd change a word here
they say I'm being inconsistent.
If I use exactly the same words that
I used every other time I was coached.
There were absolute consistencies
in which this child said
the same thing to the same interviewers
over the 9 times she was interviewed.
She's very consistent
about who touched her,
where in the house,
what part of her body,
what he touched her with.
So she's very consistent with the core
elements of her disclosure.
She hasn't really moved away
from that in this report,
in all of these interviews.
Every little idiosyncrasy that I
could've had as a seven-year-old girl
was used against me.
The fact that I used
childish descriptions
I described a couple of mannequin
heads as "dead heads."
The "dead heads"
were later identified
as Mia Farrow's mannequins
for her wigs,
probably in her profession.
I did not find that to be
an unreasonable description
by a seven-year-old who's trying
to identify what was in mom's attic.
Part of their conclusion
of why Dylan fantasized
was because she referred
to the "magic hour."
Anybody who's grown up
around filmmakers
knows that certain hours of the day
do have the magic light.
I was the kid of two people
in the film industry.
And I was on set a lot.
So how I was I supposed to know that
that constitutes magical thinking?
That's a pretty big thing
to say a 7-year-old child
is delusional,
isn't thinking right,
doesn't know the difference
between fantasy and reality.
This report failed to reflect
anything even close
to the child having
a psychotic disorder, not even close.
Jennifer Sawyer
and Dr. Julia Hamilton,
the two social workers
on Leventhal's team,
interviewed Dylan.
But according
to Dr. Leventhal's deposition,
Yale New Haven's practice
was to destroy all notes
after the completion
of an evaluation.
So ultimately
no contemporaneous record exists
of what they thought or observed
when they first interviewed Dylan.
All of the notes were destroyed.
- Are notes typically destroyed?
- No. Notes are never destroyed.
Notes are never destroyed
during a forensic evaluation,
never, ever, ever destroyed.
Notes are evidence,
and we would turn over any drawings,
any notes we took in an interview,
anything that was written down
in an interview
would be handed over
to law enforcement.
If I elected
to go to trial on this case
my first question
to each of those evaluators,
"Let me see your contemporaneous
notes in your interview of this child."
Destroyed, all of them.
Bottom line, this was basically
a runaway evaluation.
Yale New Haven did not have the
authority to reach their conclusion.
They're talking
about whether a crime occurred.
And the people who decide whether
a child is a victim of a crime
is a judge or a jury.
I make the decision, not Yale.
I haven't relinquished
my constitutional responsibility
to decide whether
or not we're going to prosecute.
It is up to a trained prosecutor
to determine whether or not
that child has been
sexually abused, period.
No one should hold up that report
and say Woody Allen was exonerated.
While the investigation continued
in Connecticut,
the investigation in New York
by the Child Welfare Administration
was also underway.
The supervisor assigned
to the case was Sheryl Harden.
In my sex abuse unit
I was a senior supervisor,
and we investigated child abuse
throughout the City of New York.
So after I read the allegations
I said I'll assign this to Paul.
Paul Williams was one
of the top investigators that I had.
He was very thorough;
he was objective.
Paul Williams had roughly handled
about 800 cases at the time,
and just the year before in 1991
the City of New York awarded him
"Caseworker of the Year".
It was the first time
that they had ever awarded
such an award to a caseworker.
Paul interviewed Dylan and found her
to be quite credible.
At her age she should not know anything
about inserting a finger into the vag*na.
She should not know anything
about inserting a finger into the an*s.
Those are not things that should be
that easy for her to discuss
unless there's something occurring.
Among the records we obtained
were a complete set of Paul Williams'
contemporaneous investigation notes.
Within the first two weeks
of being assigned the case
Williams reported that there
was sufficient information
to open a criminal investigation of
Woody Allen in the State of New York.
He was later told
by superiors that,
"In high-profile cases it is customary
for the 'big wigs' to take over
and 'we'do nothing."
This was no ordinary case.
Filings were misfiled.
Misinformation
was put into the computer.
There was clearly a strong political
climate to shut this thing down.
But Paul Williams, his agenda
was the best interest of the child.
The City of New York
had another agenda,
they needed to suffocate
and silence Paul Williams.
And when he wouldn't shut up
they fired him.
Under what pretext?
That he was insubordinate.
He wasn't following instructions.
I have no comment to say, okay?
Paul Williams may not want
to answer our questions,
but his attorney assures us he is not
running away from an investigation
into whether someone may have
intervened in New York City's handling
of the child abuse allegations
against Woody Allen.
I did my job
and I believe the kid, okay?
- You believe the kid?
- Yes.
I have seen no evidence
to led me to believe otherwise.
Confidential notes obtained from
the Human Resources Administration
indicate that the investigator
attributed the decision
not to pursue the case to the Mayor's
office, a charge they deny.
This wasn't about one supervisor
or one department in this agency.
This was a massive cover-up attempt,
and Paul was caught in the middle.
Williams is suing the city,
charging that the Mayor's office hid
and suppressed information in the case.
Williams contends that higher-ups
muzzled him, refusing to allow him
to report his findings
either to New York family court
or to authorities in Connecticut,
where a parallel investigation
is still going on.
Every procedure, every rule,
every regulation,
every statute, every ordinance
with respect to the investigation
of a child sexual abuse in this matter
was violated.
Women's rights activist
Gloria Steinem
came to lend her support
to Paul Williams.
Someone who knew the case
got in touch with me,
just as a reporter,
as a journalist.
So I talked to Paul.
He seemed to me
a very admirable, smart,
empathetic person
with no possible motive
to do anything but do his best
to find out the truth.
The determination that the judge made
was that he shouldn't have been fired,
and he was awarded his job back, and
back pay for what was taken from him.
Paul Williams felt vindicated
in the individual sense
of what happened
in terms of getting his job back.
But he was never able to complete
the very job he was given.
Paul Williams still works
for the New York City Administration
for Children's Service,
and a spokesperson for the agency
declined our request for an interview.
But in looking
through his old case file
we were surprised
to see a familiar name.
Williams had corresponded
directly with Jennifer Sawyer,
one of the social workers
who interviewed Dylan
for the Yale New Haven
investigation in Connecticut.
According to Williams' notes,
Sawyer had told him that she had
not only considered Dylan credible,
but believed
that she had more to disclose.
Sawyer's notes were later destroyed.
In the end the result was
that people with power
were able to get the case removed.
It just seemed to me, from everything
I could glean as a reporter,
to be a case of great injustice.
I don't sleep at night.
What I do is lay awake thinking
about how horrendous this has been,
what they've done to her.
The elite can do whatever they need
to do, whatever they want to do,
and there's no consequences for it.
Not long after that, I think maybe
a year later, I left the city agency.
Why?
Because I could not continue
to do what I did
to those low-income families,
those black families,
and welfare families,
and have them treated differently
than if they would've been
a Woody Allen.
He's got an army of lawyers,
and he's very wealthy.
People bend over backwards
to do what he wants.
What I really thought
was that Woody was all-powerful,
and that what he had told me
was true,
and that he could control
the Yale people, the doctor there,
and he could control somehow
the New York people.
Because he made his movies
in New York,
that brought millions of dollars
to New York City.
And what he had said to me
was that,
"It doesn't matter what's true.
What matters is what's believed."
And that he said it in such a cold way
that I thought could he be right?
And then Woody sued me
for custody,
saying that I had to hand over
my children
because I was an unfit mother,
turning my children against him
with horrible lies,
that he was going to take Dylan,
Moses, and Satchel.
But I also faced losing
all of my children,
because if Woody were believed
that I was a horrible mother,
what would happen to all the other
adopted children in the family?
I mean, there was a lot to lose.
You brought charges against me
as an unfit mother.
And I'm going
to make them stick.
Woody, don't do this.
Don't try this. Don't do this.
I don't deserve it.
If you look back from an historical
point of view
there's clearly
a bias against women
who made allegations of r*pe
and sexual abuse against children.
And the very term "hysteria"
as applied to women
was easy to believe that women
who made allegations
were themselves mentally ill.
I personally read every law review
article on this subject
from the 1880s to the 1970s.
And the level of skepticism of women's
allegations of r*pe and sexual as*ault
was almost monolithic.
People don't want to believe
that this could be happening
in the context of a family.
It's so awful to think that a father
could be doing this to his child
that we would rather assume,
we'll look for any explanation,
other than that being the truth.
Dr. Richard Gardner, known for his
innovative work on children of divorce,
coined the term
"Parental Alienation Syndrome."
The idea is that one parent,
caught up in a custody battle,
programs children
against the other parent,
even fabricating
charges of sexual abuse.
It's not a rare phenomenon;
it's quite common.
He says it usually arises when
a mother, afraid of losing custody,
uses false accusations
as a weapon.
In about 90% of cases it's the mother
who is the programmer,
and the father who is the victim
of the campaign.
He said that when mothers report child
sexual abuse in custody litigation,
most of the time they are doing
so not because it's true,
but because they want to alienate
the children from their father.
Children are very suggestable,
and it's easier for them
to start off with suggested ideas
which develop into delusions.
I believe that we are witnessing
the third-greatest wave of hysteria
that we've ever seen
in this country.
The problem with his syndrome
is that it became a device
for not believing people,
and an easy way to brand
the woman as mentally unstable
and a deliberate fabricator.
So here comes a book
that professes to give us charts,
and diagrams, and numbers,
and easy explanations
for how to sort out
whether this is true or false.
It's all bogus, it's not real science,
but it looks like science.
There were a number of studies
in the U.S. and around the world.
They found that reports of child sexual
abuse are rarely intentionally false.
Studies found
that only 2 to 9 percent
of child sexual abuse reports
made to child welfare agencies
are considered
to be intentionally false.
Gardner himself admits
that his theories
aren't based on any scientific
or clinical research,
just his experience.
His work on parental alienation
isn't reviewed by peers;
he publishes it all himself.
He was clearly very troubled.
He said crazy things,
and he put some of them in print.
" pedophilia has been considered
the norm
by the vast majority of individuals
in the history of the world "
"It is because our society
overreacts to it (pedophilia)
that children suffer".
He said that the earlier children
become sexualized
the better it is for the race,
because they'll have more sex
and more offspring.
So this is all-natural
and good for the species.
After some of that
became exposed
people started disparaging
Richard Gardner
and the Parental
Alienation Syndrome,
but then they just started
to keep on using it,
even using his same criteria.
So often fathers who are accused of
abuse respond by suing for custody.
Very often the ab*ser files for custody
to tamp down any kind of criminal
investigation that's going on.
The timing of when Woody Allen filed
for custody matches this strategy.
Within a week of learning that he was
being investigated for child abuse,
Woody Allen filed a lawsuit
against Mia Farrow
for sole custody of Dylan,
Satchel, and Moses.
The suit claimed Mia
was emotionally disturbed,
unable to manage
the rearing of her nine children,
and was brainwashing the children
with respect to the false allegations
of sexual misconduct by Allen.
Why would you want
to take them away?
You promised me
you would never do it.
You know in your heart
I'm not heavily medicated,
that I'm not a*usive, that I always
spend enough time with them.
If I have faults about that it's that I
always spend all my time with them.
I don't think in the 13 years,
of the 13 movies we've done
You'll have a chance to prove that.
But you know that in your heart,
that I've never showed up
for work without the children,
that the children
have always come first.
You'll have a chance
to make that case at some point.
And when all the facts
are in we'll see.
Okay.
- Is your phone taped?
- No, my phone's not taped.
I'm the last person that knows
how to work that stuff.
You don't even have to talk about it.
We can hang up now if you want.
I was just hearing you out
because I think,
that a terrible thing
is being done to the kids
- Are you hanging up?
- Hold on one second.
- Hello?
- Yeah, Woody?
Yes, can I call you back?
I'm on the phone with Mia and
I have been for the last 10 minutes.
I'm not saying anything,
but I'm just listening and taping.
God bless you. Bye.
Hello!
- Hello.
- Okay.
Do what you have to do. I don't think
it's in your best interest,
or in the children's
best interest.
You mean your best interest, right?
That's what this is about.
Certainly not
in my best interest either.
It's not in mine or yours,
or the children's.
A judge has barred television cameras
from the courtroom
during tomorrow's custody hearing
between Woody Allen and Mia Farrow.
Allen is suing for custody
of the couple's three children.
Try and get the kids.
He said he should have custody
of the three youngest children
he shared with Farrow,
because she was seeking vengeance
on him through the children
using them as pawns.
We are confident that after the
all the evidence is in we will prevail
at the custody hearing.
It was a circus in that courtroom.
Everybody was jockeying for seats.
I mean, every tabloid,
every big TV personality was there.
Everybody wanted to know how this
was going to end for Woody Allen.
Woody Allen to New York
was a home-grown hero
to a whole generation of artists,
intellectuals, journalists.
I grew up with Woody Allen
as a hero.
The New York Times was Woody Allen's
hometown paper in so many ways.
Vincent Canby, the film critic
for the New York Times,
had long been a champion
of Woody's work.
The readership of the New York Times
and the viewership of Woody's films
were almost two parallel audiences.
He was the ultimate New Yorker.
Next to the Statue of Liberty
who was the most famous New Yorker?
Who expressed the city best? Who
epitomized it to the ultimate degree?
It was Woody Allen. And so the
atmosphere was one of rapt attention.
The Allen v. Farrow trial was presided
over by Judge Elliott Wilk,
who would determine custody
and visitation rights
for Dylan, Satchel, and Moses.
Woody Allen
was the first witness sworn in,
and his attorney, Elkan Abramowitz,
led the questioning.
Were you ever alone
with Dylan on August 4th?
No. I was not allowed
to be alone with her.
I was always
in the presence of other people
I was never alone
for any substantial amount of time.
These claims of Mr. Allen
were contradicted in court
by three people who were supervising
the children on the day of his visit.
Kristi Groteke,
Dylan's babysitter,
testified that she searched the house
looking for Dylan,
but was unable to locate her
for about 20 minutes.
During that same period,
Sophie Berge, Dylan's tutor,
testified she was outside
with the other children,
where neither Dylan
nor Allen were to be found.
Earlier Alison Stickland,
another babysitter,
testified that she had walked in
on Dylan and Allen in the TV room.
Mr. Allen was on his knees in front
of Dylan with his head in hep lap
- where was he facing?
- Her, straight ahead.
- He was facing into her body?
- Yes.
"His head in her crotch",
that stuck with me.
I remember reporters all, like,
exchanging sidelong glances.
There seems no reasonable way
to look at that behavior
as anything but trouble.
The Woody who appeared
at the trial was a frightened,
defensive creature
who was out of his element.
There was no sense from him
that the motivation
for wanting sole custody
was his deep love for these children,
his concern for their welfare.
I think you did get a sense
of his anger with Mia Farrow.
It was really about portraying Mia
as vindictive
and seeking revenge
for the relationship with Soon-Yi.
They were attempting
to make the case
that Mia had concocted this story
as a way to punish Woody.
Do you believe that Miss Farrow
brainwashed Dylan
with respect to the accusations?
I do believe
that she brainwashed Dylan
Mia instantly took Dylan,
asked her in a leading way
about molestation
Dylan, tell me again
what happened, okay?
The videotape of Dylan
talking about abuse in the TV room,
and then in the attic, was entered
as evidence in the custody trial.
Mia testified that she taped Dylan
over two days,
whenever she had started
to speak about it.
As part of our research we asked
a team of independent experts
to evaluate the tape.
He put his head on my lap,
hugged me tight.
And then
And then he
And then he secretly took
one hand
from
from here,
and touched my privates.
And I do not like that one bit.
What a child forensic interviewer
is going to be looking for
is as the child is describing
what happened
does it seem like they are recounting
something that happened to them,
or is there a disconnect
between the words that they're using
and their body language, or their voice
inflection and that sort of thing.
- Where did he touch you?
- Here.
You can see the child
almost physically re-enacting
as though they're recalling
what happened to them
by you can see her reaching
towards her backside.
We went into your room
and we went into the attic.
He started telling me
weird things.
And secretly
he went into the attic,
and went behind me
and touched my privates.
- Which privates did he touch?
- This part.
- He touched your front part?
- Yeah!
Mia Farrow was actually
pretty careful in her questions.
All she did was say who,
what, when, where, and how.
There were no overt suggestions like,
"He molested you, didn't he?"
So there's none of that kind
of coaching going on,
where there are
implicit suggestions
such as one that I saw
was Mia Farrow
clearly believed that he must've taken
the child's pants off.
So she asked,
"Did he take your pants off?"
- Did he take your underpants off?
- No!
Dylan says no.
She keeps coming back.
You just already had them off?
- But he didn't take them off?
- No.
From my point of view what's
important is Dylan's response.
Does she go along
with the suggestion?
"Yes, he took my pants off."
But she doesn't.
It's not just
what the interviewer says;
it's whether the child
is suggestible or not that matters.
And Dylan
says no to things like that.
She's very consistent
in her story in this.
When I was in the attic he said,
"Do not move.
I have to do this."
But I wiggled my bottom
a little to see what he was doing.
He said:
"Don't move, I have to do this."
"So if you stay still"
"then we can go to Paris."
When a child
is disclosing a conversation
or something
that another person says,
that again increases
the credibility of the statement,
because she's restating
something that she heard.
So that's something that would be hard
to be coached on or fabricate about.
- Did he say why you shouldn't tell?
- He said
"Because this way you can be
in my movie, if I do this."
- I didn't want him to do it, Mama.
- I know, of course not!
The child is starting
to kind of shut down.
It wouldn't surprise me at all
watching this clip
if the child already is getting tired
of being asked these questions.
That is a very typical progression
for an abused child,
not so much
for a false accusation.
False accusations
tend to get stronger under pressure.
I didn't like it.
I just feel so bad for you.
I don't like it.
I also don't want to talk about it.
Okay. Let's turn this off.
What's in that tape
feels like that is who I am
when you strip away everything else.
When you look underneath
all my layers,
down to the very center
of who I am,
I am that little girl on the tape.
So
it's a very vulnerable
part of me,
and a very
very hurt part of me.
There's a lot of
That little girl
is in a lot of pain.
This kind of abuse
warps something inside of you.
Because it doesn't happen
by a stranger
that snatches you off the street
and throws you in a van.
It happens by someone you love
and someone you trust,
someone who buckles your seatbelt,
takes your hand
when you walk down the street,
reads you bedtime stories
It's incomprehensible to normal people
because it's not normal.
It was the 20th day of a trial
that has played out over nearly 7 weeks
in a New York courtroom,
a day for closing arguments
by lawyers for Woody Allen,
who was seeking custody
of three children
from this 12 years
unmarried partnership with Mia Farrow.
Farrow wiped tears from her eyes
as Abramowitz accused her
of seeking revenge
for Allen's affair with Soon-Yi.
The attorney argued,
"A mother who cannot subjugate her anger
at a father is unfit to be a parent."
I was so scared.
I didn't know
what would happen next.
And so we waited
for the decision.
We waited a week.
We waited two weeks.
We waited a month.
And then finally the judge
brought his opinion down.
Woody Allen's bitter child custody
battle with Mia Farrow is over.
And a New York judge today
cast Allen in a role
he's often played on screen: loser.
The judge said Allen
did not demonstrate parenting skills
that would qualify him
to care for Moses, Dylan or Satchel.
On June 7th, 1993 Judge Wilk
issued his decision,
and it was scathing.
He stated, "Mr. Allen's behavior toward
Dylan was grossly inappropriate
and that measures
must be taken to protect her.
It is unclear whether Mr. Allen will
ever develop the insight and judgment
necessary for him to relate
to Dylan appropriately.
The evidence at trial
established that Ms. Farrow
is a caring and loving mother.
I am not persuaded
that the videotape of Dylan
is the product of leading questions
or of the child's fantasy.
There is no credible evidence
to support Mr. Allen's contention
that Ms. Farrow coached Dylan."
He ruled Allen could not visit Dylan
for at least six months,
and questioned whether he could
ever be a fit parent to the girl.
Allen will be able to have
supervised visits with Satchel,
the couple's biological child,
but 15-year-old Moses
was left to decide
whether he wants
to see his adopted father.
Judge Wilk also addressed
the findings of the Yale New Haven
report in his decision, stating,
"The unavailability of the notes,
together with their unwillingness
to testify at this trial
resulted in a report which was
sanitized and therefore less credible."
He could've very easily said,
"I follow the guidelines
of the Yale study team.
They're a very prestigious
organization," but he didn't.
He said he didn't buy it.
I didn't buy it either.
As a reporter,
it's hard to admit this in a way.
I absolutely worshiped Woody Allen
before this trial.
And I still
The proof is I could never watch
a Woody Allen film again after this.
It still hurts
it still wrenches me to say that.
It's still not easy to say that.
My hope now is that I can go home,
back to my children,
and that we will finally
have some measure of peace
and be allowed to heal,
to begin that.
It was a very strange
feeling for me
being told that
I never had to see him again.
And it wasn't framed as, "You're
never going to see your father again."
It was framed as,
"Do you ever
want to see him again?" And
I didn't.
I feel it's unfortunate,
even tragic for the kids
that I didn't get custody of them.
And if I could have
just a second to thank
all the people in the streets,
and at the Knick games,
and who have come over to me
and given me their support
and said terrific things to me,
and, you know,
I'm still in there fighting
and doing my best, and thank you.
Allen appealed Judge Wilk's decision
to two higher courts.
The appellate court
upheld Wilk's decision.
New York's highest court,
The Court of Appeals,
declined to hear the case.
Allen was ordered
to pay more than one million dollars
in Mia Farrow's legal fees.
Although the custody case
had been settled,
the criminal investigation
in Connecticut was still continuing.
Are you concerned?
I don't know. I have no idea
what Connecticut is going to do.
I don't even know
all the information they have.
They have been very diligent.
I think they are also acting
as best they can to protect
the children in this family.
My instructions
to the Connecticut State Police was:
"Gather your evidence and submit
to me an arrest warrant application."
The decision as to whether or not
there was going to be a prosecution
was my decision.
Maco's team had compiled 1700 pages
of evidentiary material,
including witness statements,
logs of the physical evidence
collected by police,
forensic reports,
maps of the crime scene,
and reports of interviews
with all of the people involved.
Among the state's evidence
were records of a police interview
with Woody Allen,
where he was inconsistent
about whether he had ever been
in the attic crawlspace area,
and interviews with Dylan by three
clinically-trained child-abuse experts
from different government agencies,
all of whom found Dylan
to be consistent, honest,
and believed
she was telling the truth.
The conclusion
of these investigators
was there was probable cause to issue
an arrest warrant for Woody Allen
on the charges of first-and fourth
degree sexual as*ault of a minor.
I was confident
there was probable cause,
meaning reasonable grounds
to believe a crime was committed.
But I have to prove my case
beyond a reasonable doubt,
and I can't prove a case beyond
a reasonable doubt without a child.
In other words, could this child
be my first witness on the stand
to say what had occurred?
This case hinged on the testimony
of a seven-year-old girl.
Woody Allen denies
ever having been sexually inappropriate
or a*usive with Dylan
and was never criminally charged.
Dr. John Leventhal declined
to be interviewed for this project.
Jennifer Sawyer did not response
to request to be interviewed.
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01x03 - Episode Three
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The series examines the sexual as*ault allegation made against Woody Allen by his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow, who was seven when the abuse allegedly occurred.
The series examines the sexual as*ault allegation made against Woody Allen by his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow, who was seven when the abuse allegedly occurred.