Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón has announced that prosecutors are reviewing new evidence in the sex abuse investigation against Marilyn Manson, two years after authorities first announced they were investigating the allegations against the musician.
A statement from Gascón’s office said prosecutors are “carefully assessing new leads” and noted that it would be “inappropriate” for the district attorney to personally meet with potential victims involved in an ongoing investigation.
No charges have been filed in the case. An attorney for Manson, 55, whose birth name is Brian Hugh Warner, did not respond to a request for comment.
“We expect to make a filing decision soon and will provide an update at that time,” the prosecutor’s statement read.
‘Game of Thrones’ actress Esmé Bianco, who previously came up with allegations of abuse against Manson, appeared at a news conference Thursday with Nathan Hochman, Gascón’s opponent in the contentious race for Los Angeles County district attorney. She criticized Gascón’s handling of the case, saying he has avoided her investigations for two years.
“We’re all still waiting for answers,” she told reporters outside the DA’s office in downtown LA.
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Manson has repeatedly denied the allegations of sexual assault and abuse made against him minimum 16 women.
In 2018, prosecutors under then-LA County District Attorney Jackie Lacey declined to file charges against him in connection with a 2011 accusation. the limitation period had expired and there was a ‘lack of confirmation’. Manson’s attorney, Howard King, told The Hollywood Reporter that it was “not surprising” that prosecutors did not pursue the case, saying that a woman “fraudulently claimed that she was tortured by Mr. Warner for 48 hours in 2011.” had been held captive’.
In September 2022, the LA County Sheriff’s Department announced that it had launched a 19-month investigation into Manson and would refer the case to the district attorney’s office for consideration.
Detectives raided Manson’s home in the Hollywood area months earlier, investigating allegations between 2009 and 2011, when he was a resident of West Hollywood, according to a Sheriff’s Department statement.
“During the search, detectives seized items, such as media storage devices,” reads the Nov. 30, 2021, Sheriff’s Department statement.
Bianco said Thursday that she presented evidence to prosecutors in connection with that case, including photos of her body “covered in bites, bruises and knife wounds” as part of what she described as “hundreds of pieces of evidence.”
“Almost four years ago, I did what rape victims ‘should’ do: I went to the police,” Bianco said, speaking at a rally for Hochman, where activists and current and former prosecutors also spoke about other cases.
“I described to them in painful detail how the rock musician Brian Warner – better known by his stage name Marilyn Manson – had raped and abused me over the course of our relationship,” she said.
Manson settled a lawsuit Bianco filed a complaint against him last year, but has consistently denied the accusations made by several women.
Bianco said she has received death threats since the investigation was announced in 2022, although she did not say from whom.
“We have been shamed, blamed, silenced and re-traumatized while doing what we were told: coming forward to law enforcement,” she said, her voice breaking.
The high-profile race for district attorney has put the spotlight on the investigation after two years of lawsuits filed against them by Manson’s accusers and by the musician. Among the accusers is actress Evan Rachel Wood, who accused the musician took care of her from the age of 19 and abused her for years.
He denied the claims and sued her.
In 2022, a lawsuit was filed by a former assistant accusing the musician of sexual harassment and assault dismissed by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge. Last year, a federal judge in LA dismissed another lawsuit against Manson, filed by a model who accused him of rape.
