Another legal victory for Kevin Spacey has been achieved.
In a federal civil action brought by Anthony Rapp, 50, a New York jury found in favour of the 63-year-old and exonerated the actor.
Remember that Rapp filed a lawsuit against Spacey in 2020, alleging that the two-time Oscar winner abused him sexually more than 30 years prior, when he was only 14 and Spacey was 26. Rapp made his allegations during the height of the #MeToo movement; he said the attack happened in 1986 after a party at Spacey's apartment in New York.
Spacey disputed the claims.
“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.
“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, and objective support for accusations provided to an impartial jury. However polarised 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.”
The jury sided with Spacey.