Home of Marilyn Manson searched in sex assault investigation

Media storage devices and other items were seized as a search warrant was served on the home of the rocker Marilyn Manson in a months-long investigation of sexual assault and domestic violence, authorities have said.

Manson, 52, whose legal name is Brian Hugh Warner, was not at his home in the Hollywood area when investigators searched it early on Monday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.

The Sheriff’s Department began investigating Manson early this year after reports of sexual assault and domestic violence between 2009 and 2011 in West Hollywood, where he lived at the time.

The women involved were not identified, but several women have publicly alleged this year that they were physically, sexually and emotionally abused by Manson around the time of the incidents under investigation, and some have filed lawsuits.

Manson’s lawyer, Howard E. King, declined to comment. Manson has denied the allegations, and King has called them “provably false”.

The search of Manson’s home was first reported by TMZ.

The 52-year-old shock rocker’s former fiancee, Westworld actor Evan Rachel Wood, named him as her abuser for the first time in an Instagram post in February.

Manson called Wood’s statements “horrible distortions of reality”.

In May, Game of Thrones actor Esme Bianco sued Manson in federal court, alleging sexual, physical and emotional abuse. Bianco says that Manson violated human trafficking law by bringing her to California from England for non-existent roles in music videos and films.

Manson deprived Bianco of food and sleep, locked her in a bedroom, whipped her, gave her electric shocks and threatened to enter her room and rape her during the night, the lawsuit alleges.

Bianco’s lawyer said she also was interviewed by law enforcement.

And Manson’s former assistant accused him of sexual assault, battery and harassment in her own lawsuit, saying he used “his position of power, celebrity and connections to exploit and victimise during her employment”.

Manson emerged as a musical star in the mid-1990s, known as much for courting public controversy as for hit songs like The Beautiful People and hit albums like 1996’s Antichrist Superstar and 1998’s Mechanical Animals.