‘Dukes of Hazzard’ star faces sex assault rap in Waltham
Star blocked from performing due to assault charge
A star of the 1980s hit TV show “The Dukes of Hazzard” was barred from performing in a local production of “42nd Street” yesterday after he was charged with sexually assaulting a fellow actor in the musical — and authorities say she is not the only woman in the cast who has complained.
Tom Wopat, 65, of New York and Nashville, pleaded not guilty to indecent assault and battery and drug possession yesterday, a day after he was arrested on a warrant moments after leaving the theater at Waltham High School.
He declined to comment as he left the courthouse, wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses, and got into a black 1996 Ford Bronco after posting $1,000 bail. His lawyer, Katherine Hatch, said he denies the charges.
Waltham District Court Judge Sarah Ellis granted the accuser a restraining order barring Wopat from having any contact with her, effectively banning him from the Reagle Music Theatre production, which opened yesterday with an understudy in his starring role.
Last Saturday, the woman told police she was at rehearsal at the high school on July 23, when he walked behind her and grabbed her buttocks, a police report said. The alleged victim was “shocked and upset,” police said, and she reported the incident to Kevin Martin, a fellow cast member and union representative from Actors’ Equity.
Some of the female cast members already were uncomfortable around Wopat because of his “inappropriate flirting,” she told police, behavior that made her concerned enough to approach Stage Manager Nicky Carbone about it on July 22.
Carbone told her “that they were aware of Mr. Wopat’s behavior, and that they were going to speak with him,” police said. Later, when Carbone told her she had confronted him and he had denied the allegations, the alleged victim said, the associate director of a local musical theater camp advised her to go to police.
After yesterday’s show, Martin, the union representative, told the Herald that Robert Eagle, the producing artistic director, had forbidden all of the members of the theater group, including him, from speaking with reporters. Eagle declined through an assistant to speak with a Herald
reporter. Eagle told officers the theater already had sold more than 3,000 tickets for the show, largely due, he believed, to Wopat’s fame, police said. But in the 49 summers he has been directing the theater group, Eagle told them, he has “never encountered a situation that has been so difficult.” He said he has had to speak to Wopat about his behavior three times, according to police.
After his arrest, Wopat denied touching anyone but told officers he flirts and once touched a member of the theater group on the hip, telling her, “I like the way you work.”
After officers found cocaine in his front pocket and in his Bronco, he told them he buys it in large quantities in New York and uses it over time, police said.
He is due back in court on Sept. 26.