Embattled actor Kevin Spacey has secured another legal win.
According to the Associated Press, a New York jury sided with the 63-year-old in a federal civil case brought by Anthony Rapp, 50. The plaintiff sued Spacey in 2020, claiming the two-time Oscar winner sexually assaulted him more than three decades ago, when he was 14 and Spacey was 26.
Rapp detailed the alleged incident in a 2017 BuzzFeed article as the #MeToo movement was hitting Hollywood. The actor said the assault took place in 1986, following a party at Spacey’s NYC apartment. Rapp claimed an intoxicated Spacey placed him on a bed and got on top of him before grabbing his buttocks without consent.
“It felt very wrong,” Rapp told the jury during the three-week trial. “I didn’t want him to do it, and I had no reason that made any sense of why he would do it. I felt like a deer in headlights…I didn’t ask for him to do that. I didn’t want him to do that.”
Spacey denied the allegations and his legal team accused Rapp of creating a “story.” That managed to convince jurors that Rapp’s claims were unreliable, pointing to documents that showed Spacey lived in a studio apartment, rather than a one-bedroom location Rapp had described.
“This isn’t a team sport where you’re either on the Me Too side, or you’re on the other side,” Spacey’s attorney Jennifer Keller told the jury. “This is a very different place. Our system requires evidence, proof, objective support for accusations provided to an impartial jury. However polarized as society may be today, it really should not have a place here. We’re here because Mr. Rapp has falsely alleged abuse that never occurred at a party that was never held in a room that did not exist.”
More than a dozen people have accused Spacey of sexual abuse and misconduct. The Rapp case marked the first time he’s had to face a jury in connection to the allegations. Spacey will head to UK court in June 2023, where he will fight sexual assault accusations brought by three men. The actor has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
