Actor Kevin Spacey has asked a judge to throw out a lawsuit alleging he sexually abused a 14-year-old boy at a party in New York in the 1980s. In papers filed in federal court in Manhattan, lawyers for 62-year-old Spacey say actor Anthony Rapp’s allegations that he was assaulted by the star are false and the events he described never happened.
Rapp, who has appeared in Rent on Broadway and in Star Trek: Discovery on television, claims he went to a party in 1986 at Spacey’s Manhattan home. He says the then 26-year-old Spacey, without Rapp’s consent, “engaged in a sexual advance” by grabbing his buttocks, lifting him on to a bed and lying on his body. Rapp claimed he “was forced to extricate himself” before leaving the party.
Spacey’s lawyers argued the alleged encounter cannot qualify as sexual abuse under New York’s laws because the only alleged contact with an “intimate” part of the body by Spacey was when his hand grazed Rapp’s buttocks. They added that Rapp “wriggled out” with no resistance during an encounter of less than 30 seconds.
