A New York court on Thursday dismissed a $40 million sexual misconduct lawsuit filed by an actor against Kevin Spacey who claimed the Hollywood star targeted him when he was 14 years old.
A jury found that Anthony Rapp, who was seeking damages for “emotional distress,” could not prove the two-time Academy Award winner “touched a sexual or intimate part of the body,” leading Judge Lewis Kaplan to dismiss the civil suit.
After about an hour of deliberation, the jury “found the defendant not liable,” according to the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The 63-year-old ‘The Usual Suspects’ and ‘House of Cards’ star was spotted leaving court shortly after the sentencing without addressing reporters.
Spacey, one of the first stars to be implicated in the global #MeToo rout, has separately pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting three men in the UK between March 2005 and April 2013.
In 2019, charges against the actor for indecent assault and sexual assault were dropped in Massachusetts.
Rapp, who stars in the series Star Trek: Discovery, claimed he was attacked by Spacey at a party in Manhattan in 1986 when he was 14 and Spacey was 26.
In his lawsuit, the actor, now 50, accused Spacey of entering a bedroom where he was watching TV, picking him up, lifting him onto a bed and lying briefly next to him.
According to a court document, Rapp claimed Spacey’s hand “grazed his buttocks.”
During the two-week trial, Rapp said he felt “frozen” — until he was able to “muddle through.”
However, Rapp did agree that during one incident, which lasted no more than two minutes, there was “no kissing, no undressing, no reaching under clothes, and no sexualized comments or innuendos.”
– eventful past –
Since Rapp’s allegations first surfaced in 2017, Spacey has disappeared from screens and theaters.
The “American Beauty” star repeatedly took the stand in New York to deny Rapp’s account of the events, saying he had no recollection of attending the party in question with him.
At the time of Rapp’s allegations, Spacey was publicly coming out as gay for the first time, which he says led to accusations that he was “trying to change the subject or deflect attention”.
During cross-examination in New York, Spacey described a troubled family history with a father he described as a “white supremacist” and “neo-Nazi” who disliked gay people and didn’t appreciate his son’s interest in theater.
Spacey said Rapp’s allegations left him “shocked, scared and confused,” and at the urging of his advisers, he issued a public apology, which he now regrets.
