Kevin Spacey Not Guilty of Sexual Misconduct
A British jury found the Oscar-winning actor not guilty of all charges alleging he engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior.
Following two days of deliberations, a jury in the United Kingdom has found actor Kevin Spacey not guilty of nine charges of sexual assault, indecent assault, and causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.
The verdict marks a second legal victory for the 64-year-old actor, who, in this most recent trial, faced accusations by four men of having engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior.
He previously won a $40 million civil lawsuit brought by actor Anthony Rapp, who alleged that Spacey had made an unwanted sexual advance toward him in 1986, when the younger actor was 14. A Manhattan jury found Spacey not liable for battery.
During the trial, the jury at the Southwark Crown Court in London heard from the four men — whose identities are protected under U.K. law — who made complaints against Spacey, an Academy Award winner best known for his roles in The Usual Suspects, American Beauty, and the Netflix drama House of Cards.
One of the men, who came into contact with Spacey in the early 2000s while the actor was serving as the artistic director of London’s Old Vic Theater, claimed that Spacey repeatedly grabbed him by the crotch, including one time when they were driving in a car along a motorway.
According to Variety, the man claimed that Spacey grabbed him so hard that he almost drove off the road, causing a car accident. Spacey defended himself, presenting evidence that he claimed proved the near-accident could not have occurred, and insisted that the two had a consensual relationship in which there was some touching but in which Spacey always respected the man’s boundaries.
The second accuser alleged that Spacey had made numerous sexually aggressive comments before pinning him against a wall and grabbing his crotch at a charity event in 2005.
The third accuser alleged that he had ended up at Spacey’s London apartment in 2008 and had fallen asleep, only to wake up and find Spacey performing oral sex on him. Spacey claimed the encounter was consensual, and provided telephone records contradicting the man’s account of what happened.
A fourth accuser claimed that he had ended up at Spacey’s rented house in Gloucestershire for a party in 2013, during which Spacey allegedly kissed his neck, grabbed his penis and said, “be cool, be cool.” Spacey denied the sexual assault allegations, describing the encounter as a drunken “clumsy pass,” for which he later tried to apologize.
The jury ultimately dismissed all nine counts against Spacey, which, due to a legal technicality, had been reduced from 12 counts filed against the actor by prosecutors.
Shortly after Rapp’s accusations were made public, other people came forward to accuse Spacey of engaging in sexually inappropriate behavior, with some allegations rising to the level of assault or sexual harassment.
At least 20 people who had worked with the actor during his time the Old Vic later accused him of inappropriate behavior, according to The New York Times.
The theater commissioned an independent investigation, in which Spacey did not take part, and issued a report with their findings. Although the theater was not able to verify the allegations against Spacey, the report’s authors wrote that the actor’s “stardom and status at the Old Vic may have prevented people — in particular junior staff or young actors — from feeling that they could speak up or raise a hand for help.”
According to the Times, Spacey was charged in 2018 for sexually assaulting a television anchor’s 18-year-old son in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Prosecutors ultimately dropped the case after the alleged victim invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify.
A massage therapist in California sued Spacey in 2019, accusing him of groping and trying to kiss him before offering him oral sex during a massage. The accuser died unexpectedly ahead of the trial and the case was dismissed after the man’s estate dropped the lawsuit.
Due to the multiple accusations against him, and the negative press he received as a result, TV and film producers began dropping Spacey from various projects, including his character in House of Cards being killed off.
But Spacey’s career has also partially rebounded in the years since, with the actor appearing in smaller films, including an Italian feature, The Man Who Drew God, the American thriller Peter Five Eight, and Bilo jednom u Hrvatskoj, a movie in which he plays Franco Tudjman, the former Communist general who eventually became Croatia’s first president after breaking away from Yugoslavia.
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