(New York) A popular jury in a civil court in New York on Thursday dismissed actor Anthony Rapp, who accused fallen Hollywood star Kevin Spacey of sexually touching him when he was a teenager. at a party in Manhattan 36 years ago.
Posted at 4:30 p.m.
Updated at 5:30 p.m.
The jury delivered its decision after a short deliberation, rejecting claims by Anthony Rapp, 50, who was seeking $40 million in damages.
Shortly after the reading of the deliberations, Kevin Spacey left the court, rushing into the back of a black vehicle without making any statements to reporters. Mr. Rapp reportedly exited the back of the Manhattan courthouse and his lawyers didn’t say a word.
“Mr. Spacey is satisfied to live in a country where citizens have the right to be judged by impartial jurors who make their decision on evidence and not on rumors or on social networks”, rejoiced his lawyer. Jennifer Keller.
She welcomed in an email to AFP a “quick and clear verdict” and that “justice has been done”.
The case, revealed at the end of October 2017, at the very beginning of the #metoo phenomenon of free speech on sexual violence, was followed by other accusations of sexual assault against the actor, causing him to be sidelined in the entertainment world.
PHOTO ANGELA WEISS, FRANCE-PRESSE AGENCY
Anthony Rapp (right) and his partner Ken Ithiphol as they arrive at court.
The one who embodied a politician ready to do anything to acquire power in Washington, in the series to the planetary success of Netflix House of Cardshas not finished with the legal troubles.
The 63-year-old actor is still being prosecuted for sexual assaults against three men between March 2005 and April 2013, when he was director of a London theater, and for which he pleaded not guilty last July.
Broadway
In New York, the popular jury of 11 people – the 12e was ill on Thursday – answered in the negative the question of whether Anthony Rapp, who had filed a complaint in 2020, had demonstrated that “Kevin Spacey had touched his private parts”, in May 1986, during a party he was giving in his apartment in New York.
Anthony Rapp, who stars in the series Star Trek: Discovery was then 14 years old, while Kevin Spacey was 26. At the time, one and the other played on the boards of Broadway in New York, in two separate shows.
The two actors were present throughout the trial, since its beginning on October 6, and maintained their version of the facts.
Anthony Rapp assured that during the evening at Kevin Spacey’s, the actor had made him undergo a trauma by taking him in his arms and carrying him “like a groom carries his bride”, before putting him on his bed and lie down against him briefly, fully clothed. According to a June order which recorded the facts, “his hand” had then “rubbed for a few seconds the garment covering (the) buttocks” of Anthony Rapp.
Kevin Spacey, revealed to the general public for his roles in Seven (1995) and Usual Suspects (1996, Oscar for Best Supporting Actor), then consecrated in 2000 by an Oscar for Best Actor (American Beauty), vigorously contested the charges.
“That’s not true! “, he assured Tuesday, during his cross-examination led by the lawyer of Anthony Rapp.
He said he had met Anthony Rapp in May 1986, but with another comedian, John Barrowman, 19 at the time, and that he had flirted with the second but not with the first.
Why then did he apologize in October 2017 – while saying he had no recollection of the facts – when the affair came to light? Kevin Spacey explained that he did it on the recommendation of his agents.
At the time, he used the opportunity to come out as gay, which brought him even more criticism, with some accusing him of trying to divert attention.
In court, Mr. Spacey explained that his homosexuality had always been a difficult subject for him, in particular because of the rejection of his father, whom he described as a “white supremacist” and “neo-Nazi”.