John Charles Villiers-Farrow, the brother of movie star Mia Farrow, was arrested Wednesday in Maryland on child sex abuse counts stemming from recent allegations of incidents going back to 2000, NBC Washington has confirmed.
Villiers-Farrow, 66, was arrested after an investigation that began when two men came forward in August 2012. At the time, Anne Arundel County Police had recently received information that several children were sexually abused in the Edgewater area.
The men told police that they were victims of sexual abuse from 2000 until 2008, when they were between nine years old and 16. They described Villiers-Farrow as a neighbor.
Villiers-Farrow has been charged with second- and third-degree sex offenses, two counts of perverted practice, two counts of second-degree child abuse, several counts of sex abuse of a minor, and two counts of second-degree assault. He is being held on $250,000 bond, which was reduced Thursday from $800,000.
Court documents claim that the boys were abused in Villiers-Farrow's home, and a few times in a nearby camper. The victims told police that Villiers-Farrow would show them pornographic movies. The encounters escalated to touching and then to oral sex, the documents said.
Anyone else who may have been a victim is asked to contact Detective Josh Williams at 410-222-3484.
Villiers-Farrow made headlines in 1992 when he commented on the controversy surrounding sister Mia's custody battle with Woody Allen and Allen's relationship with Farrow's adopted daughter Soon-Yi.
At the time, Villiers-Farrow told People magazine, Allen "is going to be indicted, and he's going to be ruined. I think when all of it comes out, he's going to go to jail."
People described John as "a sometime screenwriter and boat salesman outside Annapolis, Md." A Baltimore Sun article from 1998 described "John Farrow" as co-owner of Chesapeake Catamaran Center in Annapolis, though that business has since been sold.
Villiers-Farrow also had a brush with fame back in 1968, when he accompanied Mia and their sister, Prudence, to visit Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India. The Beatles arrived in India to meet with Maharishi while the Farrows were there.
He appeared as a teen in in the Robert Stack movie "John Paul Jones," which was written by his father, screenwriter and director John Farrow. Villiers-Farrow's mother was actress Maureen O'Sullivan.
The website IMDB says Villiers-Farrow also had an uncredited role in the 1954 Elizabeth Taylor movie, "The Last Time I Saw Paris." And a Brooklyn newspaper said Villiers-Farrow was scheduled to have a movie role at the young age of 5 months, playing a baby in his father's movie "Blaze of Noon" with Anne Baxter and William Holden.
Mia Farrow became famous for her roles in the TV show Peyton Place and in movies including Rosemary's Baby, and Woody Allen movies including Zelig, Broadway Danny Rose and Hannah and Her Sisters.
More recently, she has served as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and as an activist for humanitarian aid and political change in Sudan.
Stay with NBCWashington.com and News4 for more. Also see the Hollywood Reporter and EyeonAnnapolis.net.
