LAPD investigating rape allegations against Ed Westwick

Deadline
Updated

EXCLUSIVE: The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating actress Kristin Cohen’s claim that she was raped by Gossip Girl star Ed Westwick in 2014 — a charge the actor denied on Twitter earlier today. Cohen filed a police report this morning at the LAPD’s Hollywood Division. A copy of the report, obtained by Deadline, states that “Suspect forced victim to have sexual intercourse inside his residence…three years ago.”

Two contemporary witnesses have also come forward to support her allegation. Former child actor Blaise Godbe Lipman, a friend of Cohen’s, told Deadline that she told him about the incident the day after the alleged rape. It was mid-February 2014, a few days after Valentine’s Day.

Longtime friends, Lipman said Cohen had left her car at his house before going to Westwick’s home in the Hollywood Hills. “She came over to my home the following morning and told me everything,” he said. “She was in a state of shock. It was without a doubt a rape.”

“I’ve known her since 2009,” he added. “We were teen actors. We worked on a few projects over the years. We met on the Warner Bros. lot in 2008.”

Cohen’s sister, Katalina Colgate, told Deadline that it was difficult for Cohen to talk about the incident, but that “Very shortly after it happened, she told me that she was raped. She told me and my other sister. I was furious.”

Lipman made headlines himself recently when he was the first of several young men to come forward with allegations of sexual assault and harassment at the hands of APA agent Tyler Grasham, who has since been fired from the agency and is under police investigation. Lipman notified Deadline yesterday just minutes after Cohen posted her rape allegation on Facebook.

“I have been very supportive of her coming forward after I came forward with my story,” he said. “She was a huge support for me when I was dealing with that.”

In her explosive Facebook posting detailing the alleged rape, Cohen didn’t identify the producer — her boyfriend at the time — who took her to Westwick’s house in the Hollywood Hills that night. But Cohen and Lipman told Deadline today that it was Australian producer Kaine Harling.

“He told her not to say anything because Ed has a lot of money and resources and no one would believe her,” Lipman said. “He said she could kiss her acting career goodbye because nobody would believe her. She was pressured to keep quite and keep her mouth shut.”

Said Cohen: “It was Kaine Harling. It’s been an absolute rollercoaster going through this, but I know that I’m serving the greater good and that it’s for the collective of all of us to have a voice and to create radical change in the industry. I want to deliver a message of restoration for all the women going through this, and to show that we can heal our relationships with men and women.”

Deadline reached out to Harling but has not heard back.

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