The Los Angeles Police Division mentioned on Thursday that it had opened an investigation into a girl’s allegation that she had been sexually assaulted by the actor Armie Hammer, whose Hollywood profession has just lately been derailed by allegations that he bodily abused girls.
The division mentioned that it had been contacted on Feb. 3 by a lawyer representing “a feminine group member.” After talking with the lady, the division mentioned, it started an investigation into Mr. Hammer by the Particular Assault Part.
“There’s an open investigation through which he’s a named suspect in an alleged sexual assault,” Officer Norma Eisenman, a Los Angeles police spokeswoman, mentioned. She declined to debate the case in additional element.
The division disclosed the investigation after a girl mentioned at a web based information convention on Thursday that Mr. Hammer had raped her for greater than 4 hours in Los Angeles on April 24, 2017. She mentioned Mr. Hammer had repeatedly slammed her head in opposition to a wall, bruising her face, and had crushed her toes with a crop.
“Throughout these 4 hours, I attempted to get away, however he wouldn’t let me,” the lady, who’s 24 and lives in Europe, mentioned by way of tears on the information convention, which was organized by the lawyer Gloria Allred. “I assumed that he was going to kill me. He then left with no concern for my well-being. I used to be utterly in shock and I couldn’t consider that somebody I cherished did that to me.”
Mr. Hammer’s lawyer, Andrew B. Brettler, mentioned that the lady’s “personal correspondence with Mr. Hammer undermines and refutes her outrageous allegations.”
“From Day 1, Mr. Hammer has maintained that every one of his interactions” with the lady and with each different sexual associate “have been utterly consensual, mentioned and agreed upon prematurely, and mutually participatory,” Mr. Brettler mentioned.
Mr. Hammer gained fame as an actor in movies corresponding to “The Social Community,” in 2010, through which he performed each Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, twin brothers who accused the Fb founder Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their thought.
In 2017, Mr. Hammer starred within the dramatic movie “Name Me by Your Identify,” for which he obtained a Golden Globe nomination for greatest supporting actor, and voiced a personality within the third installment of the “Vehicles” film franchise.
In July 2020, Mr. Hammer’s spouse of 10 years, Elizabeth Chambers, a tv character, filed for divorce, and Mr. Hammer’s profession appeared to implode amid allegations by two girls that he had bodily abused them.
In early January, an nameless account on Instagram revealed personal messages purportedly written by Mr. Hammer, through which he mentioned, amongst different issues, “I have to drink your blood,” and “I’m a 100% cannibal.” The feedback circulated broadly on social media.
Days later, Mr. Hammer dropped out of a movie he was set to star in reverse Jennifer Lopez, after which pulled out of a Paramount+ sequence in regards to the making of the movie “The Godfather.”
A lawyer for Mr. Hammer on Thursday evening referred to an earlier assertion he had made denying allegations that he had bodily abused a former girlfriend.
“These assertions about Mr. Hammer are obviously unfaithful,” the lawyer mentioned in a press release issued in January to US journal. “Any interactions with this particular person, or any associate of his, had been utterly consensual in that they had been totally mentioned, agreed upon, and mutually participatory.”
On the information convention with Ms. Allred, the lady mentioned she had met Mr. Hammer on Fb in 2016 and their relationship had “progressed quickly and the feelings from either side turned actually intense.”
“He would usually check my devotion to him, slyly eradicating and crossing my boundaries, as he turned more and more extra violent,” she mentioned. “He abused me mentally, emotionally, and sexually.”