Timothy Hutton Denies Sexual Assault Allegations, Brands Accuser as an Extortionist

Actor Timothy Hutton has gone on the record to deny the claims that he raped a minor back in 1983. In a story published on Monday, actress/model Sera Johnston told BuzzFeed that the Almost Family star raped her in Canada when she was only 14 years old. Speaking with Deadline on Monday, Hutton states unequivocally that the charges against him are false, he also indicated he’ll be pressing charges against his accuser.

“For the past two-and-a-half years, I have been the target of multiple extortion attempts by a woman named Sera Dale Johnston to extract millions of dollars from me,” Hutton said after the allegations were made public on Monday. “She threatened that if I did not meet her demands, she would go to the press with a false allegation that I sexually assaulted her 37 years ago in Canada.”

“I never assaulted Ms. Johnston,” Hutton continued. “Today, BuzzFeed chose to publish Ms. Johnston’s false story. BuzzFeed knew the truth because they were provided with documented evidence. What’s really going on here is that Ms. Johnston’s extortion attempts failed. She then decided to follow through on her threat to go to the press with her false story. When I became aware of this, I went to the FBI, signed a sworn statement, and filed a criminal complaint against Ms. Johnston for extortion.”

“I will not stop fighting to expose this story for what it is: a failed extortion attempt based on something that never happened,” the actor concluded.

In a statement to BuzzFeed, Hutton had stated that he “completely and unequivocally denies” Johnston’s allegations. He went on to claim that he never even met Johnson and “will not spend one more minute dignifying these allegations as they are patently false and designed only to extort money from him.”

Hutton’s sitcom, Almost Family, was also canceled by FOX on Monday not long after the news about Hutton broke. However, it’s unclear if the show was canceled due to the allegations, or if it was simply because the show wasn’t doing terribly well in the ratings. The Season 1 finale back in February only managed to pull in 820,000 viewers.

The series was based on the Australian show Sisters and starred Hutton as Dr. Leon Bechley, who’s put on trial after it’s discovered that he used his own sperm to help conceive 100 children during his career.