Those who defend Woody Allen generally repeat his own attacks on Dylan & Mia, and then say that since there was no trial to prove him guilty, we must consider him innocent (and therefore consider Mia and/or Dylan guilty).
But there was a trial in 1993, when Woody sued to take custody of Dylan & two other children away from Mia. The judge in that case ruled on nearly all of the issues being hotly debated on the internet.
Justice Elliott Wilk's "findings of fact" and conclusions are crystal clear and quite damning of Woody's behavior both before and during the trial. Follow on for excerpts from the ruling & my own conclusions.
1) "There is no credible evidence to support Mr. Allen's contention that Ms. Farrow coached Dylan or that Ms. Farrow acted upon a desire for revenge against him for seducing Soon-Yi." Woody's lawyers aggressively made that claim at the trial & have trotted it out AGAIN. There is still no credible evidence.
2) "Mr. Allen's resort to the stereotypical 'woman scored' defense is an injudicious attempt to divert attention from his failure to act as a responsible parent and adult." Yes, the judge ruled that Woody was irresponsible regarding Soon-Yi & described his role toward her as parental (even though he is not her biological father).
3) The Yale-New Haven team's investigation of Dylan was "less credible" than other evidence due to "the unavailability of the notes, together with their unwillingness to testify at this trial". Yes, they deliberately destroyed six months of notes before issuing a report that they wouldn't even testify about under oath.
4) Much criticism has been heaped on Mia Farrow's parenting by Woody and others. The judge concluded that "Ironically, Ms. Farrow's principle shortcoming... appears to have been her continued relationship with Mr. Allen." So once again, the judge ruled that Woody was the real problem, not Mia.
5) About Dylan's abuse allegation, the judge notes that "Mr. Allen's response... was an attack upon Ms. Farrow, whose parenting ability and emotional stability he impugned without the support of any significant credible evidence." So he trashed her without evidence -- and people continue to do so.
6) About Woody: "His trial strategy has been to separate his children from their brothers and sisters; to turn the children against their mother; to divide adopted children from biological children, and to set household employees against each other." In other words, he did his best to destroy the entire family in order to get his way.
7) And that's not all: "His self-absorption, his lack of judgment and his commitment to the continuation of his divisive assault, thereby impeding the healing of the injuries he has already caused [emphasis mine] warrant a careful monitoring of his future contact with the children." Yes, the judge ruled that he caused the injuries and that he can't be trusted with any of the children.
8) As for the abuse, "we will probably never know what occurred on August 4, 1992." But "credible testimony" does "prove that Mr. Allen's behavior toward Dylan was grossly inappropriate [emphasis mine] and that measures must be taken to protect her." Elsewhere he cites inappropriate behavior toward Dylan when she was 2 or 3!
And there's lots more that is even worse. Maybe we can't know for sure what happened that day in the attic, but the judge determined that enough credible evidence existed to PROVE (I'm sure judges don't use that word lightly) that Woody's behavior was grossly inappropriate toward Dylan, as well as being harmful to all of the children and entirely unjustified in his accusations against Mia. AND the judge ruled that all of the children, and Dylan in particular, must be protected against Woody.
The hit piece in the "Daily Beast", by an expert on Woody's life, carefully doesn't mention any of this, instead regurgitating Woody's allegations & warping some other facts to conclude that Woody was wronged by a "furious" woman. The style of that piece is unfortunately what women typically must endure when they speak up to accuse someone of rape or other sexual abuse.
In court, the accused is innocent until proven guilty. But outside the court, taking that view essentially declares that the accuser in a sex crime is guilty (of a false charge, of "wanting it" or a host of other things) unless she can prove herself innocent -- and she must prove that innocence to people who often don't want to hear.
THAT is a key problem of dismissing Dylan's accusation. I get that nobody wants to believe that someone they admire could sexually abuse a child. I really do get it: I once learned that a friend of mine had been raping his daughter for three years. The reality is that sex abusers occur in every profession & every social group. They aren't just strangers offering candy or jumping out of bushes.
So, enjoy Woody's movies if you want to -- the art is separate from the artist. But to celebrate the life of Woody Allen? There is lots of evidence to make it completely plausible that Dylan's story is absolutely accurate, quite aside from the unlikelihood of any other alternative. And even without that, there are plenty of other reasons to agree with the judge that Woody's behavior was grossly inappropriate (see the horrifying details in the complete ruling, linked below) -- but Woody apparently still can't see it.