Actor Kevin Spacey outside Manhattan Federal Court during his sexual assault trial in New York (Portal)
The second week of the civil trial against Kevin spacey of the #MeToo era began Tuesday in New York, but no criminal charges have been filed against him.
The actor Anton Rapp He was questioned by the defense in federal court in Manhattan.
Rapp sued the two-Oscar-winning actor sexual assault and intentionally causing emotional distress when Rapp was 14 years old. The trial began with jury selection last Thursday in Manhattan.
Rapp said he attended a party at Spacey’s Manhattan apartment in 1986 when he was 14 and was appearing in the Broadway play Precious Sons.
At the end of the night, Spacey was drunk and reportedly picked Rapp up, laid him on his bed and lay on top of him. Rapp said that Spacey, then 26, detained but managed to escape and leave the apartment.
“I was pinned under him. I didn’t know what he was doingr,” he testified last week.
Rapp filed his lawsuit in 2020, seeking up to 40 million dollars for the psychological damage he says he suffered from meeting Spacey.
Although the accuser recalled and testified that the incident occurred in a room in Spacey’s apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Spacey’s attorney Jennifer Keller managed to get Rapp to admit that “it’s possible” that there was no room and that the actors actually lived in a loft.
The defense tries to show the jury that Rapp may be confusing fiction with reality.
Rapp’s allegations, first made public in 2017, were among the first in a series of allegations that wiped out Spacey’s career Multiple allegations of sexual abuse.
Back then, Spacey starred in the Netflix political thriller House of Cards. He is also known for his role in the 1999 film American Beauty, which earned him a Hollywood Academy Award.
Spacey’s attorney pointed out that there was no erection, kissing, or genital contact in Spacey’s alleged incident. He then asked her how long her “Spacey story” had lasted.
“Fifteen to 30 seconds is my best guess,” Rapp replied.
Actor Anthony Rapp (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Under cross-examination, the “Rent” actor testified that an article by Lupita Nyong’o about her experiences with Harvey Weinstein was what prompted her to go public with her sexual assault allegations against Spacey. But during cross-examination, Rapp admitted that he spoke to a reporter about a week before Nyong’s article, who first told Rapp’s story.
Rapp says he’s seen several films with Spacey over the years because “it was my duty as an actor.” But every time, he said, he would remember what happened to him at the age of 14. The last one, he decided, would be “American Beauty” because it was “particularly difficult” and “felt uncomfortably familiar since Spacey plays the role of a grown man abusing a young girl.”
Over the years, Rapp said he’s always dreaded meeting Spacey since they work in the same industry. That day came, he said, in a dining room during a film shoot in 1993, but there was no interaction. Rapp “was in shock”. The next time would be at the 1999 Tony Awards at the Gershwin Theatre.
Rapp met Spacey in the bathroom and they looked at each other, he recalled, “There was no exchange of words.”
Another time was in “2013, 2014” at a benefit concert at Lincoln Center. Rapp was sitting in a ringside seat and unexpectedly, he said, Spacey appeared onstage to present the event.
Rapp also said he spoke to therapists about the attack. He first shared it with a doctor in 2017. It was at this point that he began to “understand the long-term implications for me.”
Andrew Holtzman, who accused actor Kevin Spacey of sexual assault, is questioned by actor Anthony Rapp’s attorney, Peter Saghir (Portal).
Andreas Holtzman he was subpoenaed by Rapp’s attorneys to testify.
Holtzman, now 68, testified that he was working in his office at the New York Shakespeare Festival Theater Company in the summer of 1981 when Spacey walked in and sat at an empty desk.
He said Spacey said nothing when he walked into the office in a windbreaker, skinny jeans and a bag, but he remembered meeting him because he saw his picture in the program for the play Henry IV, in which Spacey occurred time.
At the end of the phone call, Holtzman got up and Spacey approached him, picked him up by the crotch and laid him on the desk.said Holtzman. “What are you doing? Let go of me!” he recalled as he said to Spacey. “I could feel his erection against my body,” Holtzman said.
After a few more minutes, Spacey let go of him, grabbed his jacket and bag, and rushed out of the office, Holtzman added. “I was upset,” he said.
When questioned by an attorney for Spacey, 63, Holtzman was shown six pages of a Henry IV program, and Holtzman said he did not see Spacey’s photo.
Who is Anthony Rapp?
Rapp is an actor who made his Broadway debut at the age of 10. He has acted in the plays Six Degrees of Separation, You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown and made his name as Mark Cohen in the original cast of the Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning play Rent. His on-screen credits include Adventures in Babysitting, Dazed and Confused, and currently the Paramount+ series Star Trek: Discovery.
He became the first man to publicly accuse Spacey of sexual misconduct in 2017.
What does Spacey say about Rapp’s allegations?
Kevin Spacey (Portal)
After Rapp made his allegations in 2017, Spacey tweeted that he had no memory of the encounter. “But if I have behaved as he alleges, I owe him the most sincere apologies for what may have been profoundly inappropriate behavior while intoxicated,” she wrote.
Spacey has not previously disclosed his sexuality but said Rapp’s story encourages him to come out as gay. It was seen by many as a rare moment for Spacey to open up about his sexuality, with some even calling it an attempt to divert attention.
Spacey’s attorneys said in a court document that Rapp’s claims were simply “false and never happened.”
Last Thursday, an attorney for Spacey indicated that Rapp filed the lawsuit because he was upset that his career had stalled.
“He became bitter because he was undocumented as an openly gay man,” Keller said. Spacey’s team also suggested that the lawsuit stemmed from a young actor’s inability to tell the difference between real life and a scene he was performing on Broadway eight times a week.
What are the other legal battles Spacey is facing?
In Britain, Spacey is accused sexually assaulted three men. The oldest allegation stems from an alleged incident that happened more than a decade ago. Spacey pleaded not guilty in July during a hearing at London’s Central Criminal Court. The actor’s trial is set to take place next year.
In a separate case, a Los Angeles judge ruled in August that Spacey and his production companies must pay the producers of the Netflix series House of Cards 31 million dollars for the losses following the actor’s 2017 firing, caused by what the streaming platform described as sexual harassment of members of the production team.
What are Spacey and Rapp doing now?
After the allegations surfaced, Spacey’s role in All the Money in the World was dropped and replaced by Christopher Plummer as J. Paul Getty. Recently, Spacey has emerged from exile in Hollywood and starred in several films such as the thriller Peter Five Eight, Gateway To The West and the Franco-Nero drama The Man Who Drew God.
Rapp is filming Season 5 of Star Trek: Discovery, has just released his film Scrap, and is touring with his solo show Anthony Rapp: Without You, which is about pain, hope and triumph. The actor has spoken out for the victims as part of the #MeToo movement.
(With information from AP)
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A witness at Kevin Spacey’s trial accused the actor of sexually assaulting him in 1981.