Armie Hammer Won’t Be Charged After Sexual Assault Investigation

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A woman had accused the actor of assaulting and raping her for more than four hours in 2017, but prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence to support the allegation.

By Eduardo Medina

The actor Armie Hammer will not face criminal charges after a police investigation into a sexual assault allegation against him, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said on Wednesday.

In 2021, a woman accused Mr. Hammer of raping her in April 2017, prompting the Los Angeles Police Department to open an investigation into the actor, whose Hollywood career has been derailed by the allegation and accusations from other women that he had physically abused them. Mr. Hammer has maintained that all of his interactions with women have been completely consensual.

Tiffiny Blacknell, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office, said in a statement on Wednesday that there was "insufficient evidence to charge Mr. Hammer with a crime" because of the "complexity" of the relationship between him and the woman, whose name was not released.

Prosecutors, she added, were unable to prove that there had been "a nonconsensual, forcible sexual encounter."

"As prosecutors, we have an ethical responsibility to only charge cases that we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt," Ms. Blacknell said.

Mr. Hammer said in a statement on Instagram that he was grateful to prosecutors for "coming to the conclusion that I have stood by this entire time, that no crime was committed."

He added that he looked forward to "what will be a long, difficult process of putting my life back together now that my name is cleared."

The law office of Gloria Allred, who organized a news conference for the woman in 2021, said that they no longer represent her and had no comment.

Mr. Hammer faces no charges in connection with the other women's accusations.

The woman in the Los Angeles investigation, who is in her 20s, had said at an online news conference in March 2021 that Mr. Hammer raped her for more than four hours in Los Angeles on April 24, 2017. She said Mr. Hammer repeatedly slammed her head against a wall, bruising her face, and had beaten her feet with a crop.

"During those four hours, I tried to get away, but he wouldn't let me," the woman said at the news conference. "I thought that he was going to kill me. He then left with no concern for my well-being."

Andrew B. Brettler, a lawyer for Mr. Hammer, said immediately after the news conference that the woman's "own correspondence with Mr. Hammer undermines and refutes her outrageous allegations."

Mr. Hammer gained fame as an actor in films such as "The Social Network," in 2010, in which he played both Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, twin brothers who accused the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea.

In 2017, Mr. Hammer starred in the dramatic film "Call Me by Your Name," for which he received a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actor, and voiced a character in the third installment of the "Cars" movie franchise. But since the allegations surfaced in 2021, he has not acted. His last acting job was in Disney's "Death on the Nile," which was released in February 2022, according to IMDB.

While maintaining that he had done nothing criminal, in February, Mr. Hammer told Air Mail, a digital newsletter, that he was "one million percent" certain that he had been emotionally abusive to his accusers.

"I would have these younger women in their mid-20s, and I’m in my 30s," he told Air Mail. "I was a successful actor at the time. They could have been happy to just be with me and would have said yes to things that maybe they wouldn't have said yes to on their own. That's an imbalance of power in the situation."

Eduardo Medina is a reporter covering breaking news. @byEduardoMedina