Timothy Hutton Will Face “No Charge” from 1983 Vancouver Sexual Assault Claim; Canadian Prosecutors & Cops Close Case
by Dominic Patten
July 21, 2021


"Leverage" actor Timothy Hutton will not face Canadian justice for an alleged sexual assault after prosecutors in our northern neighbor have decided to close the decades-old case.

Earlier this month, the Crown Counsel in British Columbia told the Vancouver Police Department that a “no charge” decision had been rendered in the claims by Sera Dale Johnston that Hutton raped her in 1983.

Citing a lack of evidence available to the quasi-judicial entity and based on the province’s Prosecution Service’s charge assessment guidelines policy, the prosecutors did not believe that they had sufficient material for “a substantial likelihood of conviction” against Hutton.




“Timothy Hutton has officially been cleared by law enforcement of a criminal complaint filed against him,” the actor’s U.S. lawyer Joshua Rosenberg told Deadline.

“The Canadian authorities scrutinized the matter and found a glaring lack of support and proof of Ms. Johnston’s claim,” the Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump Holley LLP attorney added of the allegations that received wide media coverage last year.




Written out of the recent "Leverage" revival on IMDb TV because of the claims and Canadian probe on this side of the border, the WME-repped Hutton took his allegations of extortion by Johnson to the FBI.

As is their practice, the Bureau will not officially confirm or deny any investigation. Yet, the extortion investigation is actually still open and ongoing, law enforcement sources inform Deadline.

https://deadline.com/2021/07/timothy-hutton-rape-claims-no-charges-vancouver-prosecutors-police-fbi-1234796148/

Timothy Hutton sues for breach of contract after he was dropped from Leverage: Redemption (https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/timothy-hutton-leverage-redemption-lawsuit-1235191777/)

The Oscar-winning actor says he was preparing to reprise his Leverage role in March 2020 when Buzzfeed News reported (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kateaurthur/oscar-winning-actor-timothy-hutton-raped-me-when-i-was-14) that a woman went to the Vancouver Police Department, alleging that Hutton had raped her when she was 14 in 1983. Hutton denied the allegation and alleged that the accuser was trying to extort him. Prosecutors later decided not to press charges (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/timothy-hutton-to-face-no-charge-1983-rape-allegation-1234986021/). But in wake of the report, Leverage producer Dean Devlin’s Electric Entertainment dropped Hutton from Leverage: Redemption, IMDb TV's spinoff of Leverage, weeks after Buzzfeed's report with Noah Wyle tapped (https://www.primetimer.com/item/Noah-Wyle-to-star-in-a-Leverage-IMDb-TV-reboot-featuring-the-original-cast-but-not-Timothy-Hutton-gAS0wN) to lead the spinoff instead. According to Variety, "the suit alleges that Electric did nothing to investigate the allegation and ignored evidence that Hutton’s representatives presented that challenged the claim. The suit also alleges that Electric has violated the pay-or-play provision of Hutton’s agreement and still owes him at least $3 million." Hutton was replaced by Noah Wyle on Leverage: Redemption. Dean Devlin’s Electric Entertainment has yet to respond to the lawsuit.


UPDATE: Electric Entertainment responded to the lawsuit, saying Timothy Hutton failed to disclose the allegations (https://tvline.com/2022/02/28/timothy-hutton-lawsuit-leverage-breach-of-contract-revival/): “We take allegations of sexual assault very seriously, especially when children are involved. Despite dealing with these allegations for years, Mr. Hutton failed to disclose them to us before or during negotiations for him to reprise his role in Leverage: Redemption. Consequently, once we learned of the allegations in the press, we ceased negotiations with him and chose to move on without him. His baseless allegations against us are without merit and we intend to vigorously defend ourselves.”
Hutton's attorney, Dale Kinsella, responds to Electric Entertainment's statement (https://tvline.com/2022/02/28/timothy-hutton-lawsuit-leverage-breach-of-contract-revival/): “This was a flagrant and pretextual breach of an agreement that had been done for weeks before Electric Entertainment decided there was no deal. Worse, Electric made this decision without any investigation whatsoever. While nobody relishes the prospect of litigation, this course of action is a last resort to hold Electric Entertainment to its obligations. We look forward to presenting our claims to a jury and are confident it will reject Electric’s purported reliance on unsubstantiated and frivolous charges.”