In a lawsuit, Mr. Rapp said Mr. Spacey made a sexual advance when Mr. Rapp was 14. Mr. Spacey is accused of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Five years ago, as the #MeToo movement saw a growing number of high-profile men face accusations of sexual misconduct, a claim against Kevin Spacey emerged while he was starring in the Netflix show “House of Cards.”
In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Anthony Rapp, best known for his role in the musical “Rent,” alleged that in 1986, when he was 14, Mr. Spacey picked him up, placed him on a bed and lay down on top of him, making a “sexual advance.”
Mr. Rapp told the publication that the encounter occurred around the time both actors were in Broadway shows and that Mr. Spacey, then 26, invited him to a gathering at his Manhattan apartment. Mr. Rapp told BuzzFeed he was able to “squirm” away and leave.
Mr. Spacey has denied the allegation.
In 2020, Mr. Rapp sued Mr. Spacey, accusing him of assault, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. A judge dismissed the assault claim, but on Thursday, lawyers delivered their opening statements about the other claims before a 12-person jury in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Testimony began on Friday, with Mr. Rapp detailing his account of what happened in 1986.
Mr. Spacey, who faces criminal sexual assault charges in Britain in a separate case, has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen men. This is the first time one of those claims has reached a trial.
After Mr. Rapp’s public accusation, TV and film producers quickly dropped Mr. Spacey from projects. His character was written out of “House of Cards,” and he was ultimately ordered to pay the studio $31 million for breach of contract. Mr. Rapp currently stars in the TV show “Star Trek: Discovery.”
Mr. Spacey, now 63, initially released a statement saying he did not recall the encounter that Mr. Rapp, now 50, had described, saying, “But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.” In court papers submitted following the lawsuit, Mr. Spacey has vehemently denied that the incident ever occurred.
What is Mr. Rapp’s side telling the jury?
Mr. Rapp took the stand on Friday and walked the court through the details of his account. He said that in 1986, when he was 14, he attended a party at Mr. Spacey’s apartment in Manhattan and, realizing he didn’t know any other guests, went into a bedroom and watched television on the edge of the bed. Eventually, Mr. Spacey appeared in the doorway, seeming intoxicated, and approached him, Mr. Rapp testified.
Mr. Rapp said Mr. Spacey then picked him up, describing it like a groom carrying a bride over a threshold, and lay down on top of him, putting his weight on his body and pressing his groin into the side of Mr. Rapp’s hip.
“I knew something was really wrong now,” Mr. Rapp said, recalling feeling frozen in place.
Managing to wriggle out from under Mr. Spacey, Mr. Rapp testified, he went inside a nearby bathroom and shut the door before making his way to leave the apartment.
As Mr. Rapp was leaving, he said, Mr. Spacey leaned into the doorway and said, “Are you sure you want to leave?” — the first words Mr. Spacey said to Mr. Rapp during the encounter, he said.
Mr. Rapp’s lawyers have argued that this account constitutes battery and that Mr. Rapp suffered severe emotional distress, including depression and anxiety. Battery is legally defined as “the unjustified touching of another person, without that person’s consent, with the intent to cause a bodily contact that a reasonably prudent person would find offensive.”
Mr. Rapp testified that it didn’t occur to him at the time to go to the police.
The plaintiff’s side has also presented accounts Mr. Rapp gave to others in the years after the incident he described. In opening statements, a lawyer for Mr. Rapp, Peter J. Saghir, also homed in on Mr. Spacey’s statement after the BuzzFeed article, noting that he did not strongly deny Mr. Rapp’s account until his lawsuit was filed.
How is Mr. Spacey’s side defending the actor?
A lawyer for Mr. Spacey, Jennifer L. Keller, described Mr. Spacey’s initial statement concerning the allegations as the product of a “panic” among his managers and advisers, who advised him to take a certain tone to avoid the “social media mob.”
Behind the scenes, Ms. Keller said in court, Mr. Spacey was saying he had no memory of what Mr. Rapp described. In court papers, Mr. Spacey’s lawyers said that he had flatly denied Mr. Rapp’s account, and that although he had recalled meeting Mr. Rapp on a few occasions, those interactions were “peripheral and limited.”
When seeking to dismiss the case, Mr. Spacey’s lawyers emphasized in court papers that “by plaintiff’s own admission, there was no groping, no kissing, no undressing, no reaching under clothes, and no sexualized statements or innuendo.”
Ms. Keller accused Mr. Rapp of making the allegations to benefit his own career and attract public attention. “It’s not a true story, but he did tell it a lot,” she said, acknowledging that there were people who would recall Mr. Rapp’s telling them about Mr. Spacey in the following years.
Ms. Keller alleged that Mr. Rapp had fabricated the story by borrowing details from “Precious Sons,” the Broadway play he was in that year. She said that in the play a character drunkenly mistakes his son, played by Mr. Rapp, for his wife, picking him up and lying on top of him in a way that mirrors Mr. Rapp’s allegations.
Mr. Spacey’s team has also focused on his apartment at the time, presenting a floor plan that did not align with details in Mr. Rapp’s account.
Who has testified?
Mr. Rapp’s lawyers have asserted that Mr. Rapp was not the only victim of sexual misconduct by Mr. Spacey, and Judge Lewis A. Kaplan allowed another accuser to testify.
On Friday, that accuser, Andy Holtzman, 68, took the stand. He said that in 1981, Mr. Spacey groped his genitals and rubbed his groin on Mr. Holtzman, who was at the time working in an office at New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater. Mr. Holtzman testified that Mr. Spacey, who was in a production at the theater company around that time, entered his office and, after Mr. Holtzman got off a phone call, walked up to him, grabbed his groin and pushed him into his desk. Mr. Holtzman, who shared his account on Facebook in 2017, said that after he screamed his objections, Mr. Spacey angrily left the room.
In a deposition, Mr. Spacey denied Mr. Holtzman’s allegations, saying he did not recall any dealings with him. A lawyer for Mr. Spacey, Chase Scolnick, challenged Mr. Holtzman’s account in cross-examination, questioning how he would have recognized Mr. Spacey, who was not well known at the time, and why he did not tell superiors at work.
Two other witnesses testified that Mr. Rapp told them about his encounter with Mr. Spacey in the mid-1990s.
Christopher Denny, 65, who works in the theater industry, testified that Mr. Rapp, whom he described as a friend, told him about an encounter with Mr. Spacey in the mid-1990s. Sean Snow, a friend of Mr. Rapp’s, testified by video deposition that Mr. Rapp also told him the same story.
Mr. Scolnick pointed out in his questioning of the witnesses that they did not have any firsthand knowledge of the incident.
Who else is expected to testify?
Mr. Spacey’s lawyers have indicated that one of their key witnesses may be John Barrowman, an actor known for his role in the TV show “Doctor Who.” He was an acquaintance of Mr. Rapp when they were teenagers and visited him in New York in 1986 to see “Precious Sons.” Mr. Barrowman and Mr. Rapp met Mr. Spacey backstage at a play, Mr. Spacey’s lawyers said, asserting that Mr. Barrowman’s account of events that year do not align with Mr. Rapp’s.
Mr. Spacey’s lawyers have indicated that they may call Adam Vary, the BuzzFeed journalist who wrote the initial article.
Why is Mr. Rapp able to bring this claim now?
Because Mr. Rapp’s claims extend beyond the statute of limitations, he is relying on a law called the Child Victims Act, which New York State passed in 2019. It included a “look-back window” — a limited period of time in which people who say they were sexually abused as children could sue.
The plaintiff and the defense dispute whether the law applies in this case.
Mr. Spacey’s lawyers assert that based on the legislation, a plaintiff can revive claims only if they constitute a “sexual offense” that violates penal law, and they argue that Mr. Rapp’s allegations do not meet that threshold.
Mr. Rapp’s lawyers have said that sexual contact, under the law, can include touching over the clothing or forcefully holding the victim, as their client alleges.
What has become of other legal claims against Mr. Spacey?
Mr. Rapp originally sued with an anonymous plaintiff, who alleged that he was a teenager when Mr. Spacey sexually assaulted him while working as an acting coach in the 1980s. Judge Kaplan ruled that the plaintiff would have to identify himself publicly if he wanted to continue on to trial, which he declined to do.
In another case, in 2019, prosecutors in Massachusetts dropped a sexual assault charge after the accuser was warned that he could be charged with a felony if he had deleted phone evidence. The man, who had accused Mr. Spacey of fondling him at a Nantucket restaurant when he was 18, refused to continue his testimony.
Later that year, a separate lawsuit in California that had accused Mr. Spacey of sexually assaulting a massage therapist was dropped after the plaintiff died.
In Britain, Mr. Spacey is facing four charges of sexual assault as well as one of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent. He pleaded not guilty, and a trial is expected to start next summer.
Source: Television - nytimes.com
