NEW YORK (AP) – A jury sided with Kevin Spacey Thursday in one of the lawsuits that derailed the movie star’s career, finding he did not sexually abuse Anthony Rapp, then 14. while both were relatively unknown actors in Broadway plays in 1986.
The verdict in the civil trial came at lightning speed. Jurors in a New York federal court deliberated for a little more than an hour before deciding that Rapp had failed to prove his allegations.
When the verdict was read, Spacey hung his head and then hugged his lawyers. He did not speak to reporters as he left court.
“We are very grateful to the jury for seeing through these false allegations,” said his attorney, Jennifer Keller.
“What comes next is that Mr. Spacey will be proven innocent of anything he’s accused of. That there was no truth to any of the allegations,” he added, referring to other allegations of sexual misconduct. inappropriate against the actor, including criminal charges in England.
During the trial, Rapp testified that Spacey had invited him to his apartment for a party, then approached him in a bedroom after the other guests had left. He said the actor, then 26, grabbed him and partially lay on top of him on a bed before he pulled away and ran away as a drunk Spacey asked if he was sure he wanted to leave.
In his sometimes tearful testimony, Spacey told the jury that it never happened, and that he would never have been attracted to someone who was 14 years old.
The lawsuit sought $40 million in damages.
Rapp and his lawyers also left court without speaking to reporters. In his closing statements to the jury Thursday, Rapp’s attorney, Richard Steigman, accused Spacey of lying on the witness stand.
“He lacks credibility,” Steigman said. “Sometimes the simple truth is the best. The simple truth is that this happened.”
Rapp, 50, and Spacey, 63, each testified for several days in the three-week trial.
Rapp’s claims, and those of others, abruptly ended what had been a rising career for the two-time Academy Award-winning actor, who lost his job on the Netflix series “House of Cards” and saw other opportunities dry up. Rapp is a regular on TV’s “Star Trek: Discovery” and was part of the original Broadway cast of “Rent.”
Spacey faced charges in Massachusetts for groping a man in a bar, charges that prosecutors later dropped.
Three months ago, he pleaded not guilty in London to charges of sexually assaulting three men between 2004 and 2015 when he was the artistic director of London’s Old Vic theatre.
A Los Angeles judge this summer upheld an arbitrator’s decision to order Spacey to pay $30.9 million to the creators of “House of Cards” for violating his contract by sexually harassing crew members.
The Associated Press does not typically name people who allege sexual assault unless they come forward publicly, as Rapp has.
At trial, Spacey testified that he was sure the meeting with Rapp never happened, in part because he lived in a studio rather than the bedroom Rapp cited, and never had a meeting beyond a housewarming party.
“I knew I would have no sexual interest in Anthony Rapp or any child. I knew that,” she told jurors.
During his closing arguments to the jury, Keller suggested reasons why Rapp imagined the meeting with Spacey or made it up.
It was possible, he said, that Rapp invented it based on his experience performing in “Precious Sons,” a play in which actor Ed Harris picks up Rapp’s character and stands on top of him, confusing- he briefly with his wife before discovering that it is. his son
He also suggested that Rapp later became jealous of Spacey becoming a megastar while Rapp had “smaller roles in small shows” after his breakthrough performance in Broadway’s “Rent.”
“Fame didn’t follow him,” Keller said. “Mr. Rapp’s coach has turned into a pumpkin.”
“So here we are today and Mr. Rapp is getting more attention from this trial than he’s gotten in his entire acting life,” Keller said. He said that Rapp is very well known now because he has taken down one of the biggest actors in Hollywood.
During two days of testimony, Spacey regretted a 2017 statement he issued when Rapp first went public, in which he said he had no recollection of the encounter, but if it happened “I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply. inappropriate drunken behavior.”
Wiping his eyes with a handkerchief, Spacey said he had been pressured by publicists and lawyers to issue an empathetic statement at a time when the #MeToo movement was making everyone in the industry nervous.
“I’ve learned a lesson, which is never to apologize for something you didn’t do,” he said.
He also cried as he said he regretted publicly coming out as gay on the same day Rapp’s allegations surfaced because some interpreted his announcement as an effort to change the subject or deflect from Rapp’s revelations.
Spacey had testified that he spoke at trial about deeply personal issues, telling the jury that his father was a white supremacist and neo-Nazi who criticized him as gay because he liked the theater.
Spacey also gave theatergoers a brief taste of his performance when he mimicked his Broadway co-star at the time, Jack Lemmon. He had previously testified that his ability for impressions helped him in his acting career.
___
This story has been updated to correct the day of the week in the main paragraph to Thursday, not Tuesday.