Ed Westwick won't be formally charged with rape

By Sam Barsanti | July 29, 2018 | 3:52pm

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Back in November, the LAPD launched an investigation into former Gossip Girl star Ed Westwick, who had been accused of rape by three separate women. Days later, Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey put together a task force dedicated to working on sexual harassment and abuse cases coming out of the entertainment industry, and now Lacey has announced that her task force will not be charging Westwick at all. This comes from Deadline, which says two of the rape charges have been declined due to “insufficient evidence” and the third was declined to “unavailability of the victim” (an officer on the case “tried numerous times” to contact the accuser for an interview but evidently couldn’t locate her). Apparently, there were also allegations of “unwanted touching,” but Westwick won’t face charges for those either because they fell out of the statute of limitations.

Oddly, it seems like there were also numerous problems with how the LAPD and the district attorney’s office handled the case. Deadline notes that an early version of their paperwork on the case listed Westwick’s birthdate in the ‘50s, despite the fact that he’s only 31. There was also an “incorrect citation code” on the form that “labeled Westwick with an additionally potentially damning charge.” When Deadline pointed these errors out to the DA, corrections weren’t issued for “almost an hour.”