Dustin Hoffman Accused Of Exposing Himself To Teen Daughter's Friend, Assaulting 2 Women
STUDIO CITY (CBSLA) — Three women have come forward with new sexual harassment and assault allegations against actor Dustin Hoffman, including one woman who says it happened to her when she was a minor.
Variety reported Thursday that Cori Thomas, a childhood friend of Hoffman's daughter Karina, alleges the actor exposed himself to her when she was 16.
According to what Thomas told the paper, sometime during the 1980s, Hoffman spent a day with his daughter and Thomas in Manhattan and then invited them to see an apartment he was buying. After Karina left the apartment to do homework, Thomas stayed behind waiting for her parents.
Thomas claims Hoffman then went into the bathroom, apparently to shower. She says that when he came out, he dropped his robe and stood naked in front of her. Hoffman allegedly then asked Thomas to rub his feet, which she did, before a phone call informing Thomas that her mother was there to pick her up interrupted the incident.
"I was humiliated," Thomas told Variety. "My mother always had some instinct that something untoward had happened. She kept asking me, and I was so mortified, I never said anything."
Melissa Kester alleges that, while Hoffman was recording music for his 1987 film "Ishtar," he sexually assaulted her in the booth while her then-boyfriend was engineering the recording session just feet away from them.
Kester told the story to Variety in graphic detail: "He put his fingers inside me. And the thing I feel most bad about is I didn't know what to do. I just stood there. I just froze in the situation like 'Oh my god, what is happening?' It's shocking when that happens to you."
A third woman who asked to remain anonymous said a similar incident happened to her when she and Hoffman were in the back of station wagon following an "Ishtar" wrap party.
She claims Hoffman did the same thing to her. "I didn't know what to do," she told Variety. "He's smiling at me. I was frozen. I was outside of my body."
The woman says she met with Hoffman later that night at his San Remo home, and that they had intercourse.
When asked whether the incidents were non-consensual, the woman said the incident in the car was. As to the San Remo encounter, she said, "I don't know."
Three women had already come forward to accuse Hoffman of sexual misconduct. He apologized for allegedly sexually harassing an intern in 1985 last month.
During a panel about Hoffman's film "Wag the Dog" last week, comedian John Oliver questioned the actor about some of the accusations.
At one point, an incredulous Oliver said simply, "Oh, Dustin," when Hoffman asked why it had taken so long for his accusers to come forward with the allegations.
