Kevin Spacey, the two-time Oscar-winning actor who turns 64 as we speak, has been discovered not responsible of all prices in his UK sexual assault trial. Jurors reached their verdict on Wednesday, greater than two days after deliberations started in London. Spacey was reportedly tearful because the not-guilty rendering was learn earlier than the court docket.
Over the course of the almost five-week-long trial, 4 males testified towards Spacey. There have been 9 prices towards him, which included sexual assault, indecent assault, and inflicting an individual to have interaction in penetrative sexual exercise with out consent. Probably the most severe cost carried a most sentence of life imprisonment. The actor pleaded not responsible to all prices.
These alleged incidents occurred between 2001 and 2013, a interval throughout which Spacey was inventive director of London’s Previous Vic Theatre. On the trial’s opening, prosecutor Christine Agnew referred to as Spacey a “sexual bully” who “delights in making others really feel powerless and uncomfortable.” Three of the accusers say they have been aggressively groped by Spacey, the fourth claiming the actor nonconsensually carried out oral intercourse on him within the Oscar winner’s London residence in August 2008. “You by no means stated no,” Spacey’s protection lawyer, Patrick Gibb, argued throughout cross-examination of the fourth accuser. The person replied, “You possibly can’t if you find yourself asleep.”
Spacey testified that he and the person accusing him of performing oral intercourse had a “consensual…good and beautiful” night collectively, however that the person turned “awkward and fumbling” after the oral intercourse, and “hurriedly left.” The actor stated he later referred to as the complainant to test on his well-being, as his cellphone data mirrored, and exchanged textual content messages with him. Whereas on the stand, Spacey admitted that though he has been “a giant flirt,” he felt “crushed” when one other man {accused} him of violently groping him. “I by no means thought that (the person) I knew would…20 years later stab me within the again,” Spacey stated.
That man claimed Spacey groped him so violently in a automobile on the way in which to a charity ball that they almost ran off the highway. Spacey recalled the “intimate” and “considerably sexual” relationship he says the 2 shared, denying the accuser’s account by telling the court docket, “I used to be not on a suicide mission in any of these years.” Appearing as witnesses for the protection, Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, testified individually through 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 in which to their occasion. Furnish cited his assessment of previous problems with OK! Journal, which sponsored the gala, noting that Spacey didn’t seem in any images after 2001. Useless Poets Society actor Robert Sean Leonard testified on Spacey’s behalf as a personality witness, calling him “optimistic, supportive, and respectful.”
When the prosecution requested Spacey if he agreed that he was “the golden boy of the London theater scene” whose energy may affect whether or not or not accusers would come ahead, the actor insisted that he used his title “to assist others, to create artwork.” He added, “I didn’t have an influence wand that I waved in entrance of individuals’s faces at any time when I needed somebody to go to mattress with me.” Spacey, who obtained a lifetime achievement award in Italy earlier this yr, spoke about his profession fallout amid the allegations. “My world exploded,” Spacey instructed the jurors throughout his testimony. “There was a rush to judgment and earlier than the primary query was requested or answered, I misplaced my job, I misplaced my repute, I misplaced all the pieces in a matter of days.”
Previous to the trial, Spacey had been {accused} a number of occasions of sexual misconduct within the US, together with allegations that he had sexually assaulted two minors. One such accuser was actor Anthony Rapp, who got here ahead about Spacey’s alleged misconduct in 2017, claiming that Spacey made sexual advances towards him at a home celebration in 1986, when Rapp was simply 14. (On the time, Spacey launched a press release apologizing to Rapp, however claimed he had no reminiscence of the alleged interplay.) In October of final yr, a jury in New York discovered that Spacey was not chargeable for battery within the $40 million civil lawsuit introduced towards him by Rapp. Two different accusers introduced lawsuits towards Spacey, however they have been later dropped.
Gibbs concluded his argument by telling the jury, “In the event you’re certain that he’s responsible, you’ll convict him. And for those who’re something lower than certain will probably be your obligation—it would even be your pleasure—to seek out him not responsible.” Spacey, who has been free on bail throughout the trial, spoke about his skilled future simply earlier than the trial. “I do know that there are folks proper now who’re prepared to rent me the second I’m cleared of those prices in London,” he instructed ZEITmagazin. “The second that occurs, they’re prepared to maneuver ahead.”
