NEW YORK: David Blaine, the celebrity magician and performance artist, is ‘under active investigation’ by the New York Police Department after two women accused him of sexual assault, Dermot F. Shea, the department’s chief of detectives, said at a news conference Monday.
Shea declined to give any other information about the complaints, which were first reported by The Daily Beast. A representative for Blaine, who has not been charged, did not respond to a request for comment.
Blaine, 45, has become one of the most well-known magicians in popular culture with his mix of dangerous stunts and illusions. He has embarked on several seemingly death-defying tasks in an effort to test his endurance and promote his television specials: In 1999 in New York, he was buried underground in a plexiglass coffin for a week. He hung in a glass box above the Thames River in London for 44 days in 2003, and in 2006, he tried and failed to break the Guinness world record for holding one’s breath underwater by submerging himself in a tank outside Lincoln Center.
Blaine was accused two years ago of raping a woman in London in 2004, news that The Daily Beast also broke. After an investigation, Scotland Yard declined to pursue further action.
In a separate statement Monday, Jessica McRorie, a New York police spokeswoman, said: “The NYPD takes sexual assault and rape cases extremely seriously, and urges anyone who has been a victim to file a report so we can perform a comprehensive investigation, and offer support and services to survivors.”
