A woman publicly accused actor Armie Hammer of raping her in 2017 and police confirmed Thursday to NBC News that an investigation has been opened.
The woman, who identified herself as Effie, gave a statement with her attorney Gloria Allred on Thursday in which she claimed she began an affair with the then married Hammer in 2016, when she was 20, after speaking to him on Facebook. Effie alleged that Hammer abused her physically and emotionally, and that the actor employed “manipulation tactics in order to exert control” over her.
Andrew Brettler, an attorney for Hammer, denied on Thursday the allegations of sexual assault made by Effie, but did not deny the actor had a relationship with her.
“On April 24th, 2017, Armie Hammer violently raped me for over four hours in Los Angeles, during which he repeatedly slammed my head against a wall, bruising my face,” Effie said. “He also committed other acts of violence against me to which I did not consent. I thought that he was going to kill me.”
The affair between Hammer and Effie lasted about four years and ended in 2020, according to Effie. She said that during this time she “tried to dismiss his actions towards me as a twisted form of love” and that she has been in emotional distress over the alleged rape.
“I couldn’t comprehend and overcome what he had done to me,” Effie said. “Over the years since the assault, on many occasions the invasive flashbacks were so excruciating they made me feel there was no way out but to take my own life. I just wanted the pain to stop.”
In a statement, Brettler said that the Hammer’s relationship with Effie and all other sexual partners “have been completely consensual, discussed and agreed upon in advance, and mutually participatory.”
The statement called Effie’s public accusations an “attention seeking and ill-advised legal bid will only make it more difficult for real victims of sexual violence to get the justice they deserve.”
Brettler also provided a screenshot of a sexually explicit message allegedly sent to Hammer from Effie that the attorney claimed “refutes her outrageous allegations.”
Allred pushed back against the attorney’s claims and said Thursday that although someone may consent to some sexual activity, that does not mean “there is consent to any and all sexual conduct with her.”
“It is important to emphasize that even if a sexual partner agrees to certain sexual activity, she still has a right at any point to withdraw her consent,” Allred said. “If she does withdraw her consent and asks her partner to stop for any reason, he is legally and morally obligated to stop. If he does not stop, he is then at risk of committing a crime against her.”
Allred said Effie had "has provided her evidence to law enforcement and she encourages others to also provide evidence to them if they believe that their evidence might assist in an investigation of Mr. Hammer."
"I challenge Armie Hammer to present all, not some, of his communications with Effie to the Los Angeles Police Department and answer all of their questions directly rather than through his lawyers," Allred said.
In response to a question about the rape allegation against Hammer, the Los Angeles Police Department said an attorney contacted police about an alleged assault on a female community member on Feb. 3 and an investigation was opened following a conversation with the woman.
The department’s Operations West Bureau is handling the investigation. Historically, high profile-cases such as these were handled by the LAPD's Sex Crimes Unit in Robbery-Homicide Division but the unit was eliminated due to a $150 million hit to the LAPD's budget last year.
Hammer’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter of a criminal investigation.
This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com.