Jimmy Bennett, the actor who has claimed that he was sexually abused as a teenager by the Italian actress and director Asia Argento and who sought a cash settlement from her, issued his first public statement about the matter on Wednesday. He said he was too “afraid and ashamed” to speak up after the incident happened, and when The New York Times approached him in recent days with questions about the case. “At the time I believed there was still a stigma to being in the situation as a male in our society. The document, sent to The Times through encrypted email by an unidentified party, described a May 2013 sexual encounter in a hotel room in Marina del Rey, Calif., when Mr. Bennett was 17 and Ms. Argento was 37. The age of consent in California is 18.

Source: New York Times August 22, 2018 19:34 UTC