A jury has concluded that Kevin Spacey did not molest actor Anthony Rapp when Mr Rapp was 14, while both were relatively unknown actors in Broadway plays in the 1980s. The verdict in federal court in Manhattan brings to a conclusion a civil trial that was an outgrowth of the #MeToo movement.
The lawsuit, based on 2017 claims by Mr Rapp, sought 40 million dollars (£35.6 million) in damages. Deliberations lasted just over an hour. When the verdict was read, Mr Spacey dropped his head. But he then hugged lawyers and others before leaving the courtroom.
Mr Spacey said he was “deeply grateful” after winning his US civil lawsuit against actor Anthony Rapp, who had accused him of an “unwanted sexual advance” at a party in 1986. Earlier on Thursday, a lawyer for Mr Rapp, Richard Steigman, urged jurors to make Mr Spacey pay for trying to make a sexual advance on Mr Rapp in Mr Spacey’s Manhattan apartment in 1986 after a party. He accused Mr Spacey of lying on the witness stand.
Jennifer Keller, a lawyer for Mr Spacey, told jurors that Mr Rapp made up the encounter and said they should reject Mr Rapp’s claims.
Mr Rapp, 50, and Mr Spacey, 63, each testified over several days at the three-week trial. In his closing, Mr Steigman said jurors should conclude that Mr Spacey lied to them when he insisted that the encounter could not have happened, in part because Mr Rapp claimed it happened in a one-bedroom apartment and Mr Spacey lived in a studio.
“He lacks credibility,” Mr Steigman said. As for his client, the lawyer said he filed the lawsuit “to hold Kevin Spacey accountable”.
“Sometimes the simple truth is the best. The simple truth is that this happened,” he said. During her closing argument, Ms Keller tried to suggest reasons for why Mr Rapp would make up the encounter with Mr Spacey, in which he said Mr Spacey picked him up and briefly laid on top of him on a bed in his apartment.
At the time, Mr Rapp was 14 and Mr Spacey was 26. Mr Rapp testified that he wriggled out and fled the apartment only to encounter an inebriated Mr Spacey at the door asking if he was sure he wanted to leave. Mr Spacey’s lawyers said it was possible Mr Rapp invented it based on his experience performing in Precious Sons, a play in which actor Ed Harris picks up Mr Rapp’s character and lays on top of him, mistaking him briefly for his wife before discovering it is his son.
She also suggested that Mr Rapp later became jealous that Mr Spacey became a megastar while Mr Rapp had “smaller roles in small shows” after his breakthrough performance in Broadway’s Rent.
“So here we are today and Mr Rapp is getting more attention from this trial than he has in his entire acting life,” Ms Keller said. Ms Keller said after the trial that the defence was “very grateful to the jury for seeing through these false allegations”.
Lawyers on behalf of the Hollywood actor said justice had been done following the “swift and decisive verdict”, which was returned on Thursday in Mr Spacey’s favour. The actor’s lawyer, Jennifer Keller, said in a statement: “Mr Spacey is grateful to live in a country where the citizens have a right to trial by impartial jurors who make their decision based on evidence and not rumour or social media.
“And he is deeply thankful to this particular jury. This was a highly educated group of six women and five men, all except one college graduates and most with graduate degrees.
“Their verdict was swift and decisive. Justice was done today.”
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