[ad_1]
Kevin Spacey, the two-time Oscar-winning actor who turns 64 today, has been found not guilty of all charges in his UK sexual assault trial. Jurors reached their verdict on Wednesday, more than two days after deliberations began in London. Spacey was reportedly tearful as the not-guilty rendering was read before the court.
Over the course of the nearly five-week-long trial, four men testified against Spacey. There were nine charges against him, which included sexual assault, indecent assault, and causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent. The most serious charge carried a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The actor pleaded not guilty to all charges.
These alleged incidents occurred between 2001 and 2013, a period during which Spacey was artistic director of London’s Old Vic Theatre. At the trial’s opening, prosecutor Christine Agnew called Spacey a “sexual bully” who “delights in making others feel powerless and uncomfortable.” Three of the accusers say they were aggressively groped by Spacey, the fourth claiming the actor nonconsensually performed oral sex on him in the Oscar winner’s London apartment in August 2008. “You never said no,” Spacey’s defense attorney, Patrick Gibb, argued during cross-examination of the fourth accuser. The man replied, “You can’t when you are asleep.”
Spacey testified that he and the man accusing him of performing oral sex had a “consensual…nice and lovely” evening together, but that the man became “awkward and fumbling” after the oral sex, and “hurriedly left.” The actor said he later called the complainant to check on his well-being, as his phone records reflected, and exchanged text messages with him. While on the stand, Spacey admitted that although he has been “a big flirt,” he felt “crushed” when another man accused him of violently groping him. “I never thought that (the man) I knew would…20 years later stab me in the back,” Spacey said.
That man claimed Spacey groped him so violently in a car on the way to a charity ball that they nearly ran off the road. Spacey recalled the “intimate” and “somewhat sexual” Relationship he says the two shared, denying the accuser’s account by telling the court, “I was not on a suicide mission in any of those years.” Acting as witnesses for the defense, Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, testified separately via video from Monaco that Spacey attended their White Tie and Tiara Ball in 2001, not in 2004 or 2005, the time that this accuser claimed the actor grabbed his crotch on the way to their event. Furnish cited his review of old issues of OK! Magazine, which sponsored the gala, noting that Spacey didn’t appear in any photos after 2001. Dead Poets Society actor Robert Sean Leonard testified on Spacey’s behalf as a character witness, calling him “positive, supportive, and respectful.”
When the prosecution asked Spacey if he agreed that he was “the golden boy of the London theater scene” whose power could influence whether or not accusers would come forward, the actor insisted that he used his title “to help others, to create art.” He added, “I didn’t have a power wand that I waved in front of people’s faces whenever I wanted someone to go to bed with me.” Spacey, who received a lifetime achievement award in Italy earlier this year, spoke about his career fallout amid the allegations. “My world exploded,” Spacey told the jurors during his testimony. “There was a rush to judgment and before the first question was asked or answered, I lost my job, I lost my reputation, I lost everything in a matter of days.”
Prior to the trial, Spacey had been accused multiple times of sexual misconduct in the US, including allegations that he had sexually assaulted two minors. One such accuser was actor Anthony Rapp, who came forward about Spacey’s alleged misconduct in 2017, claiming that Spacey made sexual advances toward him at a house party in 1986, when Rapp was just 14. (At the time, Spacey released a statement apologizing to Rapp, but claimed he had no memory of the alleged interaction.) In October of last year, a jury in New York found that Spacey was not liable for battery in the $40 million civil lawsuit brought against him by Rapp. Two other accusers brought lawsuits against Spacey, but they were later dropped.
Gibbs concluded his argument by telling the jury, “If you’re sure that he’s guilty, you’ll convict him. And if you’re anything less than sure it will be your duty—it might even be your pleasure—to find him not guilty.” Spacey, who has been free on bail during the trial, spoke about his professional future just before the trial. “I know that there are people right now who are ready to hire me the moment I am cleared of these charges in London,” he told ZEITmagazin. “The second that happens, they’re ready to move forward.”
[ad_2]
Source link