Former "Gossip Girl" star Ed Westwick will not face charges for rape due to "insufficient evidence." (Reuters)
Los Angeles County prosecutors have decided not to file rape charges against actor Ed Westwick, citing insufficient evidence.
Westwick, best known for his role on “Gossip Girl,” was accused in November of raping two women and sexually assaulting a third in 2014. Actress Kristina Cohen made the first allegation in a post on Facebook, writing that Westwick held her down and raped her at his home in West LA. Two more women came forward with their own accounts, actress Aurelie Wynn and Rachel Eck.
In a memo on Friday, prosecutors said they did not have enough evidence to pursue charges. According to the memo, two of the women provided witnesses to help corroborate their accounts, including some who were outside the room where the alleged incident took place.
“Those witnesses were not able to provide information that would enable the prosecution to prove either incident beyond a reasonable doubt,” prosecutors wrote. “Prosecution on those two incidents is declined due to insufficient evidence.”
The third victim, who is not identified in the memo, did not respond to inquiries from the District Attorney’s office. The office declined to file charges in that case due to the victim’s unavailability.
The memo also states that some additional women made allegations of inappropriate touching, but that the incidents fell outside the statute of limitations.
Westwick has vehemently denied the allegations against him, calling them “provably untrue.” The actor was to appear in a BBC adaptation of Agatha Christie’s “Ordeal by Innocence,” but the part was recast after the allegations broke.
This story originally appeared in Variety.
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