Peter Yarrow
Peter Yarrow
In March 1970, Peter Yarrow, one third of the popular American folk trio Peter, Paul, and Mary, pleaded guilty to "taking indecent liberties" with a 14-year-old girl the previous summer before a concert. (The New York Times referred to it then as a "morals offense.")
However, Yarrow only served three months in prison for the molestation. And in the waning days of his administration in 1981, President Carter magnanimously pardoned Yarrow. (That's right. A president pardoned a convicted child molester.)
Yarrow's career continued unabated by his pesky conviction on child molestation charges. (Yarrow even performed publicly between his arrest and his sentencing!) Peter, Paul, and Mary continued to enjoy several years of touring to adoring fans, and Yarrow even pursued solo projects including one ironically of a children's book.
Woody's case in focus
Woody Allen
Woody Allen
For many years, dating back to 1993, there has been an ever-increasing mountain of very compelling evidence that Woody Allen sexually molested his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow.
The precise truth may never be known, but none of the compelling evidence in the case has hindered Allen from continuing to be one of the most heralded directors in Hollywood. Tinseltown continues to shower Allen with awards year after year, and actors fall over each other in hopes to star in one of his films.
Interestingly, one of Allen's most successful films is Manhattan, whose plot revolves around a divorced writer who dates a 17-year-old teenager. And right on cue, Hollywood showered the ironic film with numerous awards.
Granting coveted awards in Hollywood to accused child molesters in nothing new. In a previous post, we noted that Kevin Clash, the actor behind the popular Sesame Street character Elmo, won three Emmy awards even though at the time he had been accused by four different individuals of abusing them.
Then there are the well-known cases of Michael Jackson and Roman Polanski, whose careers were wildly successful following child sex abuse charges against them.
Meanwhile, it has been nearly three years since popular 1980s actor Corey Feldman boldly declared:
"I can tell you that the No. 1 problem in Hollywood was and is and always will be pedophilia. That's the biggest problem for children in this industry … It's the big secret."
Yet the mainstream media continues to remain deafeningly silent about sex abuse in Hollywood today, busy as they are with issues of abuse in the Catholic Church many decades ago in the 1960s and 1970s.
Responses