(New York) Fallen Hollywood star actor Kevin Spacey, in a civil trial in New York, was confronted on Friday by American comedian Anthony Rapp, who accuses him of sexual assault when he was 14 in 1986 and claims him today $40 million today.
Posted yesterday at 11:53 p.m.
Five years after the #metoo surge that swept away the two-time Oscar-winning movie star in the fall of 2017, his accuser Anthony Rapp, 50, told the Manhattan Civil Court jury about his “disturbing” evening more 35 years old.
Rapp was then 14 years old, and an apprentice Broadway actor. Spacey is also a young theater actor, a virtual stranger, barely 27 years old.
Teenage Rapp and young Spacey meet backstage at a New York theater and the latter invites him a week later to dinner with friends at his Manhattan studio.
Once the guests have left the small party, Rapp remains seated on the edge of the bed, the TV on.
Kevin Spacey “approached me, with a somewhat hesitant gait, carried me like a groom carries his bride”, testified Mr. Rapp, on the second day of the civil trial.
According to a deposition from Rapp last June, Spacey had “lifted him up” and “his hand (had) ‘rubbed’ the garment covering his buttocks for a few seconds”. Then, Spacey had “laid Rapp on the bed, on his back, before lying down fully clothed, briefly, beside and on” him.
On Friday, Anthony Rapp repeated that Kevin Spacey hugged him and felt “his groin” against his teenage body. “I felt like it was going on for a very long time, I felt paralyzed,” the series actor said in a trembling voice. Star Trek: Discoverywho had managed to “extricate himself” and leave the studio.
Anthony Rapp is seeking US$40 million in damages from Kevin Spacey.
Rapp’s lawyer, Peter Saghir, accused the actor on Thursday of Usual Suspects and of House of Cards of having sought “deliberately” that evening of 1986 to “satisfy his sexual desires”.
But in this civil lawsuit – the criminal procedure had been abandoned after Rapp’s complaint in September 2020 – the initial charge of “sexual assault” was not retained by the American federal justice.
The facts are considered statute-barred and outside the scope of a 2019 New York State child protection law, which may extend the statute of limitations.
Justice has retained the charge of “harming the physical integrity” of Anthony Rapp having caused “emotional distress”.