According to the Associated Press, prosecutors announced Friday that they would not press charges against American musician Marilyn Manson following a multi-year inquiry into claims of domestic abuse and sexual assault.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman hinted that the 56-year-old shock rocker, whose real name is Brian Warner, cannot be charged because the accusations are too old and there is insufficient proof.
Hochman stated, “We have concluded that accusations of sexual assault cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt and that claims of domestic violence are not covered by the statute of limitations.
“We thank the women who came forward to report and share their experiences for their cooperation and patience with the investigation, and we acknowledge and applaud their courage and tenacity.”
George Gascón, the district attorney at the time, stated on October 9 that his agency was looking for new leads to add to the “already extensive” dossier that authorities had compiled, nearly four years after the investigation started.
Early January 2021, officers from the LA County sheriff’s office announced that they were looking into Manson for crimes that occurred in West Hollywood, where he lived at the time, between 2009 and 2011. A search warrant was served on his residence in West Hollywood as part of the investigation. The prosecutors were first given the case in September 2021, but the inquiry was restarted after the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office asked for additional evidence.
In a statement, his lawyer, Howard King, said, “We are very pleased that, after a thorough and incredibly lengthy review of all of the actual evidence, the District Attorney has concluded what we knew and expressed from the start—Brian Warner is innocent.”
“Game of Thrones” actress Esmé Bianco, who sued Manson in a settled case, stated she was a part of the criminal inquiry, but the identities of the women police and prosecutors spoke to were not made public. At a rally for Hochman, who was elected shortly after, she complained about the length of the procedure before the decision not to prosecute.
On October 10, she stated, “I went to the police almost four years ago, as is the proper course of action for victims of rape.
“I told them in excruciating detail how I had been raped and mistreated during our relationship by rock musician Brian Warner, better known by his stage name Marilyn Manson.”
According to Bianco, she provided detectives with “hundreds of pieces of evidence, including emails and text messages, threats to my immigration status, and photos of my body covered in bites, bruises, and knife wounds.”
Bianco claimed in her lawsuit that she was sexually, physically, and emotionally abused by Manson, who brought her to California from England for fictitious roles in films and music videos, in violation of human trafficking statutes.
In a statement issued by her attorney, Bianco stated, “Although I am extremely disappointed by the District Attorney’s decision to not press charges in the case against Brian Warner, I am regrettably not surprised.
“Our legal system has let survivors down once more. The system, not the individual investigators and prosecutors who spent years working on this case, forced them to do so with one hand tied behind their backs.”
In 2021, Manson was initially identified as her abuser in an Instagram post by his ex-fiance, “Westworld” star Evan Rachel Wood.
When she was 19 and he was 38, Wood and Manson’s relationship was made public in 2007. They were briefly engaged in 2010 before splitting up.
Wood claimed, “He began grooming me when I was a teenager and mistreated me for years.”
“Horrible distortions of reality,” Manson said on Instagram. He filed a lawsuit against Wood, alleging that she and another woman made up charges against him and persuaded others to follow suit. In November, Manson consented to dismiss the lawsuit and pay Wood’s legal fees after a court threw out important portions of it.
Unless they come forward publicly, as Bianco and Wood have done, the Associated Press usually does not name persons who report having experienced sexual abuse.
In the months following Wood’s disclosure, several women filed lawsuits against Manson. A message left on Friday was not immediately answered by Wood’s representative.
Midway through the 1990s, Manson became a musical sensation, renowned as much for provoking public outrage as for popular songs like “The Beautiful People” and albums like “Antichrist Superstar” (1996) and “Mechanical Animals” (1998).
