“Home Alone” and “Better Call Saul” actor Devin Ratray, who is already facing domestic assault charges in Oklahoma, has been accused of raping a woman in his New York City apartment in 2017.
According to CNN, a woman named Lisa Smith has come forward with the accusation — and to complain that New York Police Department detectives spent time gathering evidence and interviewing potential witnesses five years ago — and then abandoned the case without action or explanation.
The NYPD repeatedly declined to comment to TheWrap on whether there is an active investigation into Ratray.
Ratray, who played Macaulay Culkin’s “bully” older brother in the first two “Home Alone” movies, has never been charged in the New York case. He did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment, but denied the rape allegation in a phone call to CNN.
He has also pleaded not guilty to 2021 charges that he tried to strangle his then-girlfriend following a fan convention in Oklahoma City last December; he’s due in court in October on one count of domestic assault and battery by strangulation and another count of domestic assault and battery.
According to CNN, Smith re-engaged with NYPD investigators recently after hearing about the Oklahoma case against Ratray.
Smith told CNN that she, her brother and a friend went to Ratray’s Manhattan apartment one night in 2017. After consuming a drink she said Ratray gave her, Smith said she was incapacitated on a couch until the following afternoon and assaulted for an extended period of time.
The woman said she told multiple people, who have corroborated her story to CNN. She said she filed a police report a few weeks later, and was interviewed by a detective in November 2017. The report, filed in January, showed a box checked indicating that the victim did not want to prosecute.
Smith, by this time living in Utah, subsequently flew back to New York to meet with prosecutors, but was left “sad” and “confused” by the lack of any further communication. A year later, she said she mailed a sweater she believed she was wearing that night, but got no response. “Why would I have met with the DA in the first place, years ago, if I wasn’t willing to press charges?” she told CNN. “This was all very upsetting to me.”
Asked about accusations of mishandling Smith’s case, the NYPD gave this statement: “The NYPD takes sexual assault and rape cases extremely seriously, and urges anyone who has been a victim to file a police report so we can perform a comprehensive investigation, and offer support and services to survivors.”
CNN said that it contacted the detective with whom Smith was corresponding, but the detective had no comment.
Smith said a prosecutor from the city’s sex-crimes unit recently apologized for the way her case was handled, but it still was not clear whether an investigation into Ratray was active, dormant or remained closed.
Harper Lambert contributed to this report.
