Actor Kevin Spacey Faces Additional Charges of Sexual Assault
British authorities bring seven additional charges against Spacey, who pleaded not guilty to other assault charges in July.
Academy Award-winning actor Kevin Spacey will face seven additional charges related to an alleged sexual assault of another man, the United Kingdom’s Crown Prosecution Service said in a news release from last week.
In the release, Rosemary Ainslie, the head of the CPS Special Crime Division, said the charges were related to a number of assaults against a man between 2001 and 2004.
“The CPS has also authorized one charge of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent,” Ainslie said, while noting that all criminal proceedings are active, that Spacey is entitled to a fair trial, and that charges being filed against him are not a finding or admission of guilt.
“It is extremely important there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings,” the release noted.
Spacey, 63, will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London on December 16, according to CNN.
Earlier this year, the Crown Prosecution Service also authorized five other charges of sexual assault and non-consensual sexual activity against Spacey, spanning the years 2005 to 2013. Spacey pleaded not guilty to those charges in July, and the judge scheduled a trial for June 6, 2023.
It remains unclear whether or not the trial in June will consider the new charges in addition to the previous ones, according to The New York Times.
In the United States, a federal jury found Spacey not liable for battery against actor Anthony Rapp in October. Rapp filed a lawsuit in civil court in which he alleged that Spacey had made a sexual advance toward him at a private house party when Rapp was 14 years old and Spacey was 26.
Rapp has claimed that Spacey picked him up, laid him down on his bed, grabbed his buttocks and pressed his groin into Rapp’s body without Rapp’s consent, pressing down on him with his full weight before Rapp squirmed out from underneath him.
At the beginning of the #MeToo movement, Rapp came forward with his allegations against Spacey, which prompted BuzzFeed News t0 publish an article in 2017 about Rapp’s experiences.
Since then, more than 30 people have made their own allegations against Spacey, Vox reported.
Spacey had been a prominent actor: He won two Academy Awards for roles in The Usual Suspects and American Beauty, and worked as the artistic director at London’s The Old Vic theater from 2004 to 2015. In 2017, The Old Vic conducted an investigation and claimed to have found at least 20 instances in which someone accused Spacey of inappropriate behavior.
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