Stephen Collins investigated by LA police over new sexual offence allegation
Last week the New York Police Department (NYPD) also said it would be investigating the American actor over an alleged confession he made in 2012 regarding sexual offences against minors - he has not been charged
Two days after New York police announced it was investigating alleged historic sexual offences against children by Hollywood actor Stephen Collins, officers in LA received a further allegation about him.
A case has now been opened by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, after a woman claimed that the 7th Heaven actor exposed himself to her in 1983 when she was 13.
Collins was already being investigated by the NYPD over allegations of “inappropriate sexual conduct with minors”, which he allegedly admitted to his estranged wife Faye Grant in a secretly recorded therapy session in 2012.
He had reportedly admitted to exposing himself to and molesting three underage girls.
The NYPD announced on 7 October it would be reviewing the case.
The contents of that recording have only just become public after being released by entertainment site TMZ and contains an alleged claim that he had molested an 11-year-old New York girl in the 1970s.
Collin, 67, has not been charged in either New York or Los Angeles.
He and Grant are in the midst of a divorce, after a filing had been submitted in 2012 - a court decision on how their assets are to be divided will be made next month. Grant reportedly included the allegations against her husband in the divorce papers.
Grant has strongly denied that she leaked the tape: “I woke up today to learn that an extremely private recording I handed over to authorities in 2012 per their request in connection with a criminal investigation was recently disseminated to the press,” she told E! News. “I had no involvement whatsoever with the release of the tape to the media.”
Collins’ lawyer, Mark Vincent Kaplan, has said that the allegations are an attempt by Grant to obtain a bigger settlement in the couple’s divorce.
According to the Associated Press, the divorce papers do not include a denial of the accusations by Collins, but does describe them as “an attempt to extort concessions in settlement”.
Collins, who has previously acted in All The President’s Men and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, has since reportedly been dropped from upcoming feature Ted 2. He has also been dropped by his talent agency
Additional reporting by agencies
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