Actor Kevin Spacey Acquitted of All Nine Sexual Offense Charges in London Trial
Spacey was first accused of sexual assault in 2017 by actor Anthony Rapp. After Buzzfeed published an article on Rapp's allegations, Spacey said "there was a rush to judgment", adding: "Before the first question was asked or answered, I lost my job, I lost my reputation, I lost everything, in a matter of days." He was dropped from the TV drama "House of Cards" and removed from the movie "All the Money in the World" after the accusations came to light. Rapp, who accused Spacey of making an unwanted sexual advance in 1986 when he was 14, brought a civil lawsuit against the actor in the U.S., but lost the case last year.
Spacey became one of several prominent names in entertainment to face allegations of sexual misconduct during the #MeToo movement. The Old Vic in London launched an investigation and said in 2017 it had received 20 separate allegations of inappropriate behavior. Four of these men who had made the complaints against the actor (none of the men can be named for legal reasons) brought a lawsuit against Spacey. A U.K. jury found him not guilty of the nine charges of sexual assault, indecent assault and – the most serious charge – causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity.
This means that Spacey, on his 64th birthday, has been cleared of all charges against him in the U.K. It took the jury two days to come to their decision. Spacey's lawyer Patrick Gibbs said it was not a crime to like sex or have casual sex even if you were a famous person and that it was "not a crime to have sex with someone of the same sex, because it's 2023 not 1823".
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