Kevin Spacey is on trial in the US for sexual assault

The allegations were made by Anthony Rapp. In 2017, Spacey was forced out of House of Cards, and his film and theater career stalled after he was accused of sexual assault by Rapp years ago.

The trial is expected to last less than two weeks. The trial will focus on the relationship between the two men in 1986 in New York. At the time, Rapp was a promising child actor, and Spacey was 26 and playing on Broadway.

Anthony Rapp, then 14, claims the older actor invited him to a party at his Manhattan apartment and then tried to seduce him in the bedroom after the other guests had left.

Rapp said a few years ago on the Internet that a drunk Spacey grabbed him “like a groom holds a bride,” led him to the bed, and lay on top of him. Rapp broke free and ran. Kept silent about what happened for three decades. When Rapp told his story to BuzzFeed in 2017, the #MeToo (#MeToo) movement was just beginning to sweep Hollywood. Spacey said he did not remember the incident. However, the actor said that if something similar to Rapp’s description did indeed happen, he offered his sincerest apologies for the unseemly behavior of a drunken man.

Spacey’s lawyers later dismissed the allegations as false. They argued that Rapp never attended the party in question, and even if what happened was true, it did not meet the legal definition of sexual assault.

The hearing in the case begins on Thursday. Anthony Rapp is seeking compensation for mental and emotional damages, medical expenses, and job loss.

Spacey, 63, has already pleaded not guilty in London to allegations by three men who claim the actor sexually assaulted them between 2994 and 2015. At the time, Spacey was the artistic director at the Old cry”.

This summer, a Los Angeles court upheld an arbitration award that ordered Spacey to pay $30.9 million to the creators of the House of Cards series. According to the court, Spacey must compensate Netflix for breach of contract.

Meanwhile, Kevin Spacey started filming again and had some victories over the law. In 2019, the prosecution in Massachusetts failed to prove a charge against a man who claimed that the actor behaved indecently with him in a bar in Nantucket. Spacey maintained his innocence, and his accuser lost the case.

Kevin Spacey won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in American Charms in 1999 and Best Supporting Actor for The Usual Suspects.

Anthony Rapp is known from the films “The Adventures of the Nanny” and the TV series “Star Trek: Discovery”, adds BTA.