REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
A New York jury on Thursday concluded that Kevin Spacey should not be held liable for allegedly sexually assaulting a then-adolescent actor, bringing a close to a $40 million civil lawsuit and marking the end, for now, of any legal threat to the A-lister on American soil.
Taking less than hour to deliberate, the jury dismissed the battery claim at the core of a lawsuit filed by Anthony Rapp after nine days of testimony in Manhattan federal court. Rapp and Spacey both took the stand to tell their side of the story about the 1989 encounter when Rapp was just 14 years old.
The result marks another legal win for Spacey, who has dodged allegations of sexual violence and misconduct from over a dozen people since Rapp first detailed his story in a 2017 Buzzfeed article. Despite the wide array of claims of predatory abuse, Rapp’s civil trial was the first time Spacey actually faced a jury in connection to the allegations against him. In the United Kingdom, he has pleaded not guilty to charges he sexually assaulted three men between March 2005 and August 2008 during his artistic director tenure at London’s Old Vic Theatre. He will face that trial next June.