NEW YORK — Actor Anthony Rapp faced Kevin Spacey from the witness stand on Friday, and detailed how he felt like a “deer in the headlights” when Spacey allegedly threw him on a bed and mounted him when he was a teen.
Rapp, who is suing Spacey civilly for $40 million, testified that it happened after a 1986 party at Spacey’s Upper West Side apartment, where he was the youngest guest.
The Manhattan jury heard about how Rapp spent most of the evening in Spacey’s bedroom watching late-night TV.
After everyone left, Rapp said a drunken Spacey walked in and picked him up, the way a groom would carry a bride.
“I noticed that he was sort of unsteady on his feet and seemed to be kind of like glassy-eyed, a little bit — a little bit unfocused in his eyes. I took that to tell me that he was intoxicated,” Rapp testified.
He described how the Oscar winner allegedly laid him down on the bed, climbed on top of him and put the full weight of his body on his chest. Rapp mimicked Spacey interlocking his arms under his own and cupping his shoulders with his hands.
“He wasn’t fully parallel on me. It was at a little bit of an angle, and he was pressing his groin into my hip,” Rapp said. “I was frozen. I was pinned underneath him. I felt like a deer like in the headlights. I didn’t really know what to do.”
Spacey stared Rapp down as he listened to the testimony. The “House of Cards” actor is also expected to take the stand.
Rapp, 50, who starred in the original “Rent” cast on Broadway, the movie “Dazed and Confused,” and TV series like “Star Trek,” said the alleged misconduct occurred at the beginning of his career.
“I was this 14-year-old child, and I had no desire to have any kind of experience like this in my life, and it was incredibly frightening and very alarming and totally antithetical to anything else I had ever experienced around the community of people I loved being a part of,” Rapp said. He went on to testify that it “disrupted a sense of belonging in this community that was so important to me.”
Spacey’s lawyers said they intend to spend “no less” than three hours cross-examining Rapp next week.
Rapp’s attorneys say the interaction between Spacey and their client is part of a pattern of alleged molestation by Spacey.
A second Spacey accuser took the stand Friday to describe accusations that Spacey manhandled him in 1981.
Andrew Holtzman was 27 years old and working for the Shakespeare Festival at Astor Library when he claims Spacey, who he had never met, aggressively groped him.
Holtzman, 68, said he was finishing up a phone call when Spacey walked into his office. He said recognized the actor from a portrait in a program for a production of “Henry the IV.”
He said he “very clearly” saw Spacey was sexually aroused when Spacey lifted him by his crotch onto a desk.
“What are you doing? Get off of me,” Holtzman said, he testified. “I could feel his erection on my body.”
When asked if Spacey reacted, Holtzman claims the star said “absolutely nothing” but looked angry as he left.
Since first facing allegations in 2017, Spacey, 63, has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than 20 men. The allegations range from rape and sexual assault to groping.
Rapp’s case is the first to make it to trial. The “American Beauty” actor also faces criminal charges in the U.K.
