No charges for James Levine in sex allegations
JAMES Levine, the American conductor, will not face criminal charges on allegations that he sexually abused a minor in the 1980s. The police department of Lake Forest, Illinois, which has been investigating the case since October 2016, announced yesterday that there were no grounds for a criminal case.
The alleged victim, Ashok Pai, now 48, was 16 at the time he claims Levine fi rst had sexual relations with him. At that time, according to a press statement from the Lake Forest Police Department, the statutory age of consent in Illinois was 16.
The age of consent in Illinois has since been raised to 17 — or 18 in cases where the suspect is “in a position of trust, authority, or supervision in relation to the victim,” the statement said. But, the statement added, “we are bound to apply the law that was in effect at the time the allegations occurred rather than the law as it currently exists.”
Levine, 74, has seen his professional affi liations crumble last week as institutions including the Metropolitan Opera, which he led as music and artistic director for 40 years, have hastened to distance themselves from him after Pai’s claims were published in the New York Post last Saturday, followed by articles in the New York Times naming three additional men who alleged that Levine had abused them. Pai’s experience was the most recent; the other cases dated back as long ago as 1968.
In a written statement on Thursday, Levine denied all the allegations. The accusers stand by their claims. — WP-Bloomberg