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.
And the lack of evidence means Rapp’s claims for assault, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress must fail, the lawyers said. Spacey “flatly denies” that any of what Rapp described took place.
Lawyers for Rapp did not immediately respond to a request for comment. When he first spoke publicly of his claim in 2017, others went public too and Spacey’s then celebrated career, which included an Oscar for his role in 1999's American Beauty, abruptly halted.
He was fired from his Emmy-winning role in House Of Cards days after Rapp went public. Former show workers claimed that Spacey made the production a “toxic” workplace and one ex-employee alleged the actor sexually assaulted him.
In November, an arbitrator said Spacey and his production companies must pay the studio behind the Netflix political thriller 31 million dollars because of losses they incurred after his firing. Spacey appealed against the decision, but a panel of arbitrators endorsed it.
A criminal case brought against him, an indecent assault and battery charge stemming from the alleged groping of an 18-year-old man at a Nantucket resort, was dismissed by Massachusetts prosecutors in 2019.
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