Marilyn Manson accuser Esmé Bianco slams DA’s handling of sex abuse case after new leads announced

By Marissa Wenzke

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    LOS ANGELES, California (KCAL, KCBS) — Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced that prosecutors are reviewing new evidence in the sex abuse investigation of Marilyn Manson, two years after authorities first announced they were looking into allegations against the musician.

A statement from Gascón’s office said prosecutors are “carefully reviewing new leads” and noted it would be “inappropriate” for the district attorney to personally meet with potential victims involved in an ongoing investigation.

No charges have been filed in the case. An attorney for Manson, 55, whose birth name is Brian Hugh Warner, did not respond to a request for comment.

“We anticipate making a filing decision soon and will provide an update when that time comes,” the DA’s office statement reads.

“Game of Thrones” actress Esmé Bianco, who previously came forward with abuse allegations against Manson, appeared Thursday at a news conference with Nathan Hochman, Gascón’s opponent in Los Angeles County’s contentious race for district attorney. She criticized Gascón’s handling of the case, saying he has avoided her inquiries for two years.

“We are all still waiting for answers,” she told reporters outside the District Attorney’s Office in downtown LA.

Manson has repeatedly denied sexual assault and abuse accusations made against him by at least 16 women.

In 2018, under then-LA County District Attorney Jackie Lacey, prosecutors declined to file charges against him in connection with an allegation from 2011, saying the statute of limitations had expired and there was an “absence of corroboration.” Manson’s attorney, Howard King, told The Hollywood Reporter it was “not surprising” the DA’s office didn’t pursue the case, saying a woman had “fraudulently claimed she was held captive by Mr. Warner for 48 hours in 2011.”

In September 2022, the LA County Sheriff’s Department announced it had launched a 19-month investigation into Manson and was submitting the case to the DA’s office for consideration of charges.

Detectives raided Manson’s Hollywood area home months earlier, looking into allegations from between 2009 and 2011 when he was a resident of West Hollywood, according to a statement from the Sheriff’s Department.

“During the search, detectives seized items such as media storage devices,” the sheriff’s department statement issued Nov. 30, 2021 reads.

Bianco said Thursday that she presented evidence to prosecutors in connection with that case including photos of her body “covered in bites, bruises and knife wounds” as part of what she described as “hundreds of pieces of evidence.”

“Almost four years ago, I did what victims of rape are ‘supposed’ to do: I went to the police,” Bianco said, speaking at a rally for Hochman where activists and current and former DA’s office prosecutors also spoke about other cases.

“I described to them in agonizing detail how the rock musician Brian Warner — better known by his stage name Marilyn Manson — had raped and abused me over the course of our relationship,” she said.

Manson settled a lawsuit Bianco filed against him last year but has consistently denied accusations from multiple women.

Bianco said she has received death threats since the investigation was announced in 2022, although she did not say from who.

“We have been shamed, blamed, silenced and retraumatized in the process of doing what we were told to do: Come forward to law enforcement,” she said, her voice breaking.

The high-profile district attorney race has put a spotlight on the investigation after two years of lawsuits filed by Manson’s accusers as well as by the musician against them. Among the accusers is actress Evan Rachel Wood, who alleged the musician groomed her beginning when she was 19 and abused her for years.

He denied the claims and sued her.

In 2022, a lawsuit filed by a former assistant accusing the musician of sexual harassment and assault was dismissed by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge. Last year, a federal judge in LA dismissed another lawsuit against Manson, which was filed by a model who accused him of rape.

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