Suits and Litigation (Civil)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      Two Black Comedians Sue Police Over Search at Atlanta Airport

      by

      Eric André and Clayton English said they were two of hundreds of Black travelers who have been stopped and questioned by officers just as they were about to board flights.Eric André cleared security at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, gave the gate agent his boarding pass and was moments away from stepping onto a plane when he was stopped by officers with the Clayton County Police Department.The officers questioned Mr. André, who is Black, about whether he was selling drugs and what drugs he had in his possession, he said in an interview and a court complaint.They asked to inspect his bag. When he asked if he had to comply, the officers said no, and Mr. André was eventually cleared to board, he said.During the interaction with the police, other passengers had to squeeze past Mr. André and the officers on the jet bridge, the narrow passageway that connects the gate to the airplane during boarding. He said he was allowed onto the plane but left shaken by the interaction.“I knew it was wrong,” said Mr. André, the creator of “The Eric André Show,” a stand-up comedian, actor, producer and writer. “It was humiliating, dehumanizing, traumatizing. Passengers are gawking at me like I’m a perpetrator as they’re like squeezing past me on this claustrophobic jet bridge.”Mr. André’s encounter in April 2021 echoed another one in October 2020 by Clayton English, another Black comedian, at the same airport.Mr. André and Mr. English filed a lawsuit this month against the Police Department, saying they were unfairly targeted for drug checks, according to the complaint. Their lawyers said the department’s practice discriminated against Black travelers who had already been cleared by Transportation Security Administration agents.The Clayton County Police Department runs a jet bridge interdiction program at the airport and made stops between Aug. 30, 2020, and April 30, 2021, according to the suit.Court papers say the stops resulted in a total of three seizures: “roughly 10 grams (less than the weight of one AAA alkaline battery) of drugs from one passenger, 26 grams (the weight of about 4 grapes) of ‘suspected THC gummies’ from another, and 6 prescription pills (for which no valid prescription allegedly existed) from a third.”Two passengers — those who had the roughly 10 grams of drugs and the pills — were charged, the suit said.In that time, a total of 402 stops were made. In cases where race was recorded, more than half of the 378 passengers who were stopped were Black.The Clayton County Police Department declined to comment, citing pending litigation. In April 2021, when Mr. André shared his experience on Twitter, the department denied wrongdoing.“This type of interaction occurs frequently during our officers’ course of duties, and is supported by Georgia law and the U.S. Constitution,” a 2021 department statement said. The department added, “Our preliminary findings have revealed that Mr. Andre was not racially profiled.”The Atlanta Police Department — not the Clayton County Police Department — is the primary law enforcement agency at the airport, the airport said in a statement. “APD has a robust drug interdiction program but, unless otherwise required, does not engage in jet-bridge stops of passengers,” the statement said.From September 2020 to April 2021, the police seized about $1 million from passengers, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.Richard Deane, a lawyer involved in the suit, said the purpose of the stops appeared to be to seize money and that the stops were made largely, if not solely, based on race.The suit maintains the police violated the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures and the equal protection clause, which guarantees racial equality and prohibits racial discrimination, said Barry Friedman, founding director of New York University’s Policing Project, and another lawyer on the case.“We have a great concern about police acting when there’s no policy in place, particularly democratically accountable policy that guides the discretion of police officers,” he said at a news conference this month. “When there’s undue discretion, we get what you have here, which is severe racial discrimination.”Drug interdiction programs at airports started in 1975 with a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration operation in Detroit and expanded to other airports, said Beth A. Colgan, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.“I think it’s a strong suit,” she said. “In terms of the Fourth Amendment claims, it seems clear that they were seized and that searches did occur and it would be difficult to describe these as consent searches.”Civil asset forfeiture allows law enforcement to seize cash, property or vehicles based on probable cause that those involved are associated with criminal activity, Professor Colgan said. This is a low standard, she said, and people often do not challenge forfeitures because the process to get the money back is costly and time-consuming.Courts have favored law enforcement in cases of consent versus coercion, said Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, a fellow and visiting professor at Harvard Kennedy School.“People may feel the need to say yes, and it’s a coerced sense of giving consent as opposed to a freedom of saying no and then feeling like everyone is going to suspect they had drugs on them,” she said.Mr. English, who lives in Atlanta, was the winner of NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” competition in 2015 and has headlined in clubs, colleges and festivals.He said he spent his three-and-a-half-hour flight in 2020 wondering what he had done wrong and whether he would be arrested upon landing. When the police took his boarding pass and identification and searched his bag, he felt he had no choice but to comply.“I felt completely powerless,” he said at the news conference. “I felt violated. I felt cornered. I felt like I couldn’t, you know, continue to get on the plane. I felt like I had to comply if I wanted everything to go smoothly.”Mr. André lives in Los Angeles but travels through the Atlanta airport often for work and has recently taken to hiring a service that brings passengers directly to the plane after they’ve cleared security because he’s afraid of repeating his experience from last year.“It’s not just about me or what I went through,” he said. “It’s about the community I identify with. It’s about Black and brown people being discriminated against and being treated like second-class citizens, being treated as if they’re already suspicious and they don’t belong in this country by their own government and the trauma that comes with that.” More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Television

      Anthony Rapp Said Anguish Returned When He Saw Kevin Spacey Onscreen

      by

      In testimony in a civil trial, Mr. Rapp argued that Mr. Spacey had inflicted emotional distress by climbing atop him in a bed when Mr. Rapp was 14. Mr. Spacey says the encounter didn’t happen.Watching Kevin Spacey’s character show sexual interest in a teenager in the film “American Beauty” was “unpleasantly familiar,” the actor Anthony Rapp testified in federal court on Tuesday, describing a repeated reaction he had in the years after Mr. Spacey climbed on top of him and made a sexual advance, which Mr. Rapp said occurred when he was 14.Whenever he would see Mr. Spacey — a rising Hollywood star — appear in movies or in person, such as the day of the Tony Awards, Mr. Rapp said he would instantly recall the encounter, which Mr. Spacey denies ever happened. Even a brief appearance by Mr. Spacey in the 1980s movie “Working Girl,” in which his character propositions a secretary in a limousine, startled and upset Mr. Rapp.“It was as if someone poked me with a cattle prod,” Mr. Rapp testified.Mr. Rapp, a stage and screen actor best known for his role in the musical “Rent,” has sued Mr. Spacey over the incident, which he said occurred in 1986, when Mr. Spacey was 26. Mr. Rapp has accused Mr. Spacey of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and the civil trial, which began in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday, has centered not just on whether the encounter happened as Mr. Rapp described, but whether he has psychologically suffered from it over the past three decades.“As his name and notoriety increased, it was harder and harder to escape,” testified Mr. Rapp, who is seeking damages from Mr. Spacey.During cross-examination, a lawyer for Mr. Spacey, Jennifer L. Keller, hammered Mr. Rapp on discrepancies between his testimony and earlier versions of his account, questioning whether he was being “deliberately vague” about his recollections.Mr. Rapp, 50, has testified that after a party at Mr. Spacey’s Manhattan apartment, Mr. Spacey picked him up, laid him on a bed and climbed on top of him, with Mr. Spacey’s pelvis pressing into the side of his hip, before Mr. Rapp was able to escape.There were no resulting criminal charges, but Mr. Rapp filed a lawsuit in 2020 with the help of a New York State law called the Child Victims Act, which includes a limited period of time in which people who say they were sexually abused as children could sue.Mr. Spacey, 63, won an Oscar for his roles in “American Beauty” and “The Usual Suspects,” and is also known for his monologues as the sinister politician Frank Underwood in the Netflix series “House of Cards.” He has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen men, but this is the first time the actor has stood trial. In Britain, he awaits trial on sexual assault charges, and has pleaded not guilty in that case.When Mr. Rapp took the stand on Friday, he walked the jury through his account of the night in 1986, when, he said, he attended a party at Mr. Spacey’s high-rise apartment. Mr. Rapp, who was a child actor in the Broadway show “Precious Sons” that year, did not recognize any other guests, so he went inside Mr. Spacey’s bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed watching TV, he testified. After some time, Mr. Spacey showed up in the doorway, Mr. Rapp said, appearing unsteady on his feet and glassy-eyed.Walking over to the bed, Mr. Spacey picked up him up, Mr. Rapp testified, describing the positioning like a groom carrying a bride over the threshold. Then Mr. Spacey laid him down onto the bed and climbed on top of him, pressing his “full weight” into him, Mr. Rapp said.“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 shut himself into a nearby bathroom before making his way to leave the apartment. Mr. Spacey leaned into the front door and said, “Are you sure you want to leave?” — the first words Mr. Spacey said during the encounter, Mr. Rapp said.Last week, Mr. Rapp’s side also presented testimony from two friends of Mr. Rapp’s who say that in the mid-1990s he told them about the encounter with Mr. Spacey.In her cross-examination on Tuesday, Ms. Keller pointed to an inaccuracy from earlier comments by Mr. Rapp, in which he said that he had been inspired to tell BuzzFeed News about his account after reading a guest essay in The New York Times by the actress Lupita Nyong’o in which she wrote about how she felt unsafe when the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein asked to give her a massage.Ms. Keller presented text messages between Mr. Rapp and the BuzzFeed journalist, Adam Vary, that showed that Mr. Rapp had first contacted Mr. Vary about his account several days before Ms. Nyong’o’s account was published.At an awards event in 2018, Mr. Rapp had described how he decided to go public, so Ms. Keller said that “the bottom line is your acceptance speech in 2018 was not truthful.”Mr. Rapp responded, “I’m learning right now it wasn’t true.”In her questioning, Ms. Keller also pointed out that Mr. Rapp’s original lawsuit claimed that Mr. Spacey had “grabbed” Mr. Rapp’s buttocks, but that Mr. Rapp later said Mr. Spacey’s hand had “grazed” his buttocks while he was picking him up. Ms. Keller also disputed Mr. Rapp’s account of the apartment in which he said the encounter took place. Mr. Rapp has testified that he went inside a separate bedroom to watch TV and did not notice the other guests leave, but Mr. Spacey’s defense team has asserted that he was living in a studio apartment at the time without a separate bedroom.“Is it possible you’re completely wrong about that?” Ms. Keller asked Mr. Rapp, to which he responded, “It’s possible, and I remember a bedroom.”The defense has asserted — and Mr. Rapp agrees — that no one has come forward to confirm that he or she attended the party at Mr. Spacey’s apartment. It has also suggested that Mr. Rapp fabricated the allegation out of envy for Mr. Spacey’s career, which he denies.Earlier in the day, Mr. Rapp testified that he had not discussed the accusations with a therapist until October 2017, the month the BuzzFeed article was published. It was the first time he had processed the long-term effect the encounter had had on his life, he said.“I began to, in general, have intruding thoughts about it — sleepless nights sometimes,” he testified.Unlike in a criminal trial, jurors in a civil trial do not need to find that the defendant committed the offenses beyond a reasonable doubt. Instead, the 12-person jury will be asked to consider whether the greater weight of the evidence is in the plaintiff’s or defendant’s favor. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Theater

      Lawsuit Says Charity Leader Hired His Former Personal Trainer for Key Role

      by

      Spending by a charity intended to honor a radio pioneer is being challenged by his granddaughter, who says he was tricked into leaving his fortune to it. The charity denies the charge and says the producer did not trust his family to protect his legacy.Over the course of a decade, Matthew Forman emerged as a public face of the Himan Brown Charitable Trust, a charity with $100 million in assets and a stated purpose of furthering the legacy of Mr. Brown, who had created treasured radio dramas like “Dick Tracy” during that medium’s golden age.As a director and, more recently, a consultant to the trust, Mr. Forman, 41, earned as much as $250,000 annually as he helped distribute millions of dollars in funds to deserving causes, often around Miami, where he was recognized with a community service award and spoke on expert panels.“He was great to work with,” said Isabelle Pike, senior vice president of development at Branches, an organization that works with poor families. “He supported great programming here in South Florida.”But a foundation run by a granddaughter of Mr. Brown’s has challenged Mr. Forman’s qualifications for those roles in court papers that say he apparently had no prior experience in the field when he was hired by the charity’s sole trustee, for whom he had worked as a personal trainer.The challenge is the latest chapter in a long-running lawsuit by the foundation, the Radio Drama Network, against the sole trustee, Richard L. Kay, who helped design the trust as Mr. Brown’s lawyer.Mr. Kay has argued that Mr. Brown created the trust to shield his money from a family from whom he had become estranged. But the suit contends Mr. Kay tricked Mr. Brown, at age 94 in 2004, into signing over his fortune to the charitable trust, whose spending Mr. Kay now controls. Mr. Brown died six years later.Under a new estate plan, the suit argues, most of the fortune that had been designated to go to the Radio Drama Network was instead diverted to the new Himan Brown Charitable Trust.The lawsuit argues that, under Mr. Kay, the trust has paid $1.5 million to Mr. Forman and donated millions more to causes tied to Mr. Kay, like his alma maters, Cornell University and Michigan Law School; his grandchild’s Montessori school; and the 92nd Street Y, New York, where he is on the board. That money, the suit asserts, should have instead been directed to the radio foundation, which Mr. Brown separately created to foster respect for the spoken word.“I really want to let people know who he was and show the kind of work he did,” Melina Brown, the granddaughter, said in an interview. “But it’s not happening.”Himan Brown, right, directing Betty Winkler and Frank Lovejoy at a radio studio in New York in 1943.Associated PressMr. Forman declined to be interviewed but his lawyer defended his qualifications, describing him as a former sales professional who had done well in college and while briefly attending law school at the University of Miami. In 2014, the Miami-Dade County public school system recognized him with a Community Partners Recognition Award for help the trust provided for children in Miami’s poorer neighborhoods. Several other grant recipients in Florida praised him and the charity for their work.“He is a humble, bright, diligent and caring person who is one of the most professional people I’ve worked with in philanthropy,” said Melissa White, the executive director of the Key Biscayne Community Foundation, which has received grants from the trust.The judge presiding over the case, filed in Surrogate’s Court in Manhattan in 2015, has ruled that the administration of the trust and its spending are beyond the scope of the lawsuit, which is focused on allegations that Mr. Kay deceived Mr. Brown into setting it up.But the drama network has challenged that ruling and argues that Mr. Kay’s spending choices, including the hiring of Mr. Forman, are indicative of his self-interest at the time the trust was drawn up in 2004. It did not begin functioning until after Mr. Brown’s death.Mr. Brown had created the radio network, a separate foundation, in 1984, and in a 1999 interview he spoke of it as being part of his effort to revive the lost “art of listening” in an era of reduced attention spans and competing media.The communal experience of radio, where families gathered in living rooms for a broadcast, had its heyday from the 1930s to the 1950s, before the expansion of television. During that time, Mr. Brown directed and produced shows like “The Adventures of the Thin Man,” “Flash Gordon,” “Grand Central Station” and “Inner Sanctum Mysteries,” working alongside actors like Orson Welles and Helen Hayes. In 1990, he was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame.Several years before he died, Mr. Brown was sued unsuccessfully by his son, Barry, who said, among other things, that his father had molested him as a child, a charge that his father denied. Barry Brown sued again after his father died, challenging his father’s will in a case in which he accused Mr. Kay of manipulating his father into diverting money into the new charitable trust.But in 2015, Judge Nora S. Anderson of Surrogate’s Court rejected his claim and cited witnesses who said Mr. Brown had “remained clearheaded and firm-minded even through advanced age.”The drama network filed its suit later that year. Mr. Kay’s lawyers argued that the claims of fraud had already been adjudicated. But Judge Anderson decided that the new lawsuit could move forward.In the current suit, Mr. Kay’s lawyers have accused Ms. Brown of trying to claim a larger share of the estate so as to draw larger administration fees. Mr. Kay said in a deposition earlier this year that Mr. Brown had expressly created the new trust to keep the bulk of his money away from Barry Brown and Barry’s two children, including Melina.Melina Brown, left, and Himan Brown in an undated family photograph.via Melina Brown“I cannot be more dramatic about the venom displayed by Himan Brown with respect to his son, and it extended to his granddaughters, as well,” Mr. Kay said.Melina Brown has denied seeking larger fees or that the breach between her grandfather and father ever extended to her. She said in an interview that her grandfather, whom she cared for in his last years, had loved her and wanted her to push forward with his mission to build interest in the spoken word. Before he died, he appointed her as a director of the Radio Drama Network and in his estate left her $3 million and his home in Connecticut.Today, the radio foundation has about $20 million in assets. In the year ending June 2021, it gave $307,500 in grants, including to organizations that support Hispanic theater and storytelling in public schools. Pursuing the lawsuit against the trust has been expensive, with more than $2 million going to legal fees in the past two years, according to tax records.The charitable trust controlled by Mr. Kay holds about $107 million in assets. It distributed nearly $4.5 million in grants in the year ending in March 2021, according to tax filings.Mr. Kay receives yearly compensation as a trustee — $300,000 last year — which he shares with his law firm, Pryor Cashman, which has drawn fees of as much as $400,000 to represent the trust in recent years.Lawyers for Mr. Kay say Mr. Brown’s name is fully associated with gifts made by his trust, like a 60+ Program named for him at the 92nd Street Y, New York. They say that when Mr. Brown was alive, his radio foundation financially supported many varied causes, of which only a few were affiliated with the spoken word. They also point out that the trust has supported multiple speaking engagements, such as appearances by Dick Cavett and Bill Clinton. Mr. Brown, they say, viewed Mr. Kay as a friend whose judgment he fully trusted in making grants, and they point to personal messages from Mr. Brown to Mr. Kay to illustrate their close relationship.Mr. Forman said in a deposition last month that he had worked as a personal trainer for Mr. Kay and his family in New York, before moving to Florida. He had been working in sales, he said, when Mr. Kay hired him for the trust in 2011, and he acknowledged that he did not have prior experience in philanthropic giving beyond making gifts himself. In court papers earlier this year, he said he had also served at one point as a co-trustee of the trust.New York State does not set specific professional qualifications for employees or consultants of a charity. But experts said charities, especially those with substantial funds, often seek to hire individuals with an understanding of charitable work, topical expertise and experience in fund-raising or grant giving.Matthew Forman representing the Himan Brown Charitable Trust at an event at the University of Miami School of Medicine in 2011.via Key Biscayne Community FoundationLawyers from Carter Ledyard & Milburn, who represent the drama network, were precluded from asking detailed questions about Mr. Forman’s work for the charity during his deposition last month, after Judge Anderson ruled that the suit did not directly concern Mr. Kay’s administration of the trust.But in limited questioning, Mr. Forman said he had worked as an employee of the trust until sometime in late 2017 or early 2018. Tax records show from that point forward a company registered to Mr. Forman, Miami Philanthropic Consulting Inc., began to serve as an adviser to the trust. For the year that ended in March 2021, the consulting company was paid $250,000 by the trust, according to the tax records.Mr. Forman said in his deposition that he had not spoken to Mr. Kay in years, but said he could not give an exact date.He was also asked what he knew about the man whose legacy he had promoted. He said he knew that Mr. Brown had risen from a humble background to become a successful businessman who owned production studios and had stayed vibrant into old age.“He produced radio shows,” Mr. Forman said. “I believe ‘The Thin Man.’ Maybe ‘Dick Tracy.’” More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Television

      What to Know About Kevin Spacey’s Civil Trial: Anthony Rapp Takes the Stand

      by

      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.Anthony Rapp said Mr. Spacey made a “sexual advance” when Mr. Rapp was 14.Slaven Vlasic/Getty ImagesWhat 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. More

    • 150 Shares159 Views

      in Television

      What to Know About Kevin Spacey’s Civil Trial: Lawyers Make Opening Statements

      by

      In a lawsuit, the actor Anthony 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 laid 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 begins on Friday.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.Anthony Rapp said Spacey made a “sexual advance” when Rapp was 14.Slaven Vlasic/Getty ImagesWhat is Mr. Rapp’s side telling the jury?In opening statements on Thursday, a lawyer for Mr. Rapp, Peter J. Saghir, described how Mr. Spacey invited Mr. Rapp to a party at his apartment in 1986, after they met while performing in separate Broadway shows. Mr. Rapp, who was 14 at the time, decided to sit on the edge of Mr. Spacey’s bed watching television instead of mingling with strangers who were older than him, Mr. Saghir told the jury.Mr. Rapp then saw Mr. Spacey enter the bedroom and realized the other guests had left, his lawyer said. Mr. Spacey picked Mr. Rapp up in his arms, Mr. Saghir said, describing the position like a groom carrying a bride over the threshold. According to Mr. Rapp’s account, Mr. Spacey appeared drunk and laid down on top of him, pressing his pelvis into the side of Mr. Rapp’s hip.“I recall being frozen and shocked and upset and scared,” Mr. Rapp said in an earlier deposition.As Mr. Rapp left Mr. Spacey’s apartment, Mr. Saghir told the jury, the older actor leaned into the doorway and asked, “Are you sure you want to go?”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.” The plaintiff’s side is expected to tell the jury about accounts Mr. Rapp gave to others in the years after the alleged incident. In opening statements, Mr. 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, that he had recalled meeting Mr. Rapp on a few occasions but that 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 laying 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 is expected to testify?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 has agreed to allow another accuser to testify.That accuser, Andy Holtzman, says that in 1981, Mr. Spacey groped his genitals and rubbed his groin on Mr. Holtzman. In a deposition, Mr. Spacey denied Mr. Holtzman’s allegations, saying he did not recall any dealings with him.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.Both sides are likely to call witnesses who have said that Mr. Rapp told them about the allegations, and Mr. Spacey’s lawyers 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. More

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in Movies

      Angelina Jolie Details Abuse Allegations Against Brad Pitt in Countersuit

      by

      In court papers related to a legal battle over a French winery they once owned together, she claims that he was abusive to her and their children during a 2016 plane ride.Angelina Jolie filed a cross complaint against her ex-husband Brad Pitt on Tuesday, disclosing new details about what she described in court papers as abusive behavior by him on a private plane in 2016 that led to the dissolution of their marriage.In a court filing in Los Angeles, filed as part of a legal battle over a winery the prominent Hollywood actors once owned together, lawyers for Ms. Jolie stated that negotiations to sell her share of the business to Mr. Pitt had broken down over his demand that she sign “a nondisclosure agreement that would have contractually prohibited her from speaking outside of court about Pitt’s physical and emotional abuse of her and their children.”Her filing goes on to describe an extended physical and verbal outburst in September 2016 as Mr. Pitt, Ms. Jolie and their six children flew from France to California. “Pitt choked one of the children and struck another in the face” and “grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her,” the filing states, adding that at one point “he poured beer on Jolie; at another, he poured beer and red wine on the children.” Federal authorities, who have jurisdiction over flights, investigated the incident but declined to bring criminal charges. Days after the plane trip, Ms. Jolie filed for divorce.Lawyers for Mr. Pitt did not immediately return several phone calls and emails seeking his response on Tuesday. In 2016, unnamed people close to Mr. Pitt were quoted in various publications saying that he had not been abusive toward his children.The decoupling of Ms. Jolie and Mr. Pitt has stretched on for years, drawn out by a court battle for custody of their children and, more recently, a lawsuit instigated by Mr. Pitt over the French winery, Château Miraval, that the couple bought more than a decade ago. Mr. Pitt’s lawsuit, filed this year, accused his ex-wife of violating his “contractual rights” when she sold her half of the company to a subsidiary of Stoli Group without his approval.Ms. Jolie’s cross complaint said she only sold her stake elsewhere after talks broke down over his demand for a nondisclosure agreement. Her filing states that the F.B.I. agent who investigated allegations that Mr. Pitt physically assaulted Ms. Jolie and their children on the plane in 2016 had “concluded that the government had probable cause to charge Pitt with a federal crime for his conduct that day.”The Château Miraval property, which is near Brignoles, in the south of France, in 2008.Lionel Cironneau/Associated PressA redacted F.B.I. report on the case, which was reported on by several news outlets in August and later obtained by The New York Times, states that the agent provided the United States Attorney’s Office “copies of a probable cause statement related to this incident.”“After reviewing the document, representative of the United States Attorney’s Office discussed the merits of this investigation with the case agent,” the report said. “It was agreed by all parties that criminal charges in this case would not be pursued due to several factors.”The F.B.I. report described Ms. Jolie as “conflicted on whether or not to be supportive of charges” related to the case.Representatives from the F.B.I. and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles declined to comment.“She has gone to great lengths to try to shield their children from reliving the pain Pitt inflicted on the family that day,” Ms. Jolie’s lawyers wrote in the cross complaint. “But when Pitt filed this lawsuit seeking to reassert control over Jolie’s financial life and compel her to rejoin her ex-husband as a frozen-out business partner, Pitt forced Jolie to publicly defend herself on these issues for the first time.”According to Ms. Jolie’s account of the 2016 flight in the court papers, the dispute began when Mr. Pitt accused Ms. Jolie of being “too deferential” to their children and then began yelling at her in the bathroom. “Pitt grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her, and then grabbed her shoulders and shook her again before pushing her into the bathroom wall,” the filing states. “Pitt then punched the ceiling of the plane numerous times, prompting Jolie to leave the bathroom.”When one of the children came to Ms. Jolie’s defense, the court papers said, Mr. Pitt lunged at the child, prompting her to grab him from behind. Amid the altercation, Mr. Pitt “choked one of the children and struck another in the face,” the suit said.The 2016 flight has been the subject of news media reports since shortly after it occurred. In November of that year, the F.B.I. released a statement saying that it had closed its investigation into the flight and that no charges had been filed.Puck News reported this August that Ms. Jolie had been seeking information about the F.B.I.’s case as an anonymous plaintiff in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, with the publication including details of the report.It is unclear whether the heavily redacted F.B.I. report included allegations that Mr. Pitt had choked or struck any of the children.Ms. Jolie and Mr. Pitt met each other on the set of “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” a 2005 action movie in which they played married assassins. In 2008, they purchased a controlling interest in Château Miraval, viewing it as both a family home and business; several years later, the couple was married on the property.Ms. Jolie and Mr. Pitt have six children, now between the ages of 14 and 21.The French winery, known for its rosé, is at the center of a legal dispute between the divorced couple.In February, Mr. Pitt sued Ms. Jolie and her former company, alleging that she violated his “contractual expectations” when she sold her interest in the wine company to Tenute del Mondo, a subsidiary of Stoli Group. According to his lawsuit, the former couple had an understanding that neither party would sell its share of the winery without the consent of the other.“Jolie pursued and then consummated the purported sale in secret, purposely keeping Pitt in the dark, and knowingly violating Pitt’s contractual rights,” his lawsuit alleged.Last month, Ms. Jolie’s former company, which is now owned by Stoli Group, countersued Mr. Pitt, rebutting his version of events and his claim that the sale constituted a “hostile takeover.”In Ms. Jolie’s own countersuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, she said that she opted to sell her share of the wine business, in part, because she was growing uncomfortable with participating in an alcohol-related business, considering Mr. Pitt’s “acknowledged problem of alcohol abuse.” Mr. Pitt told The Times in 2019 that after Ms. Jolie filed for divorce, he spent time in Alcoholics Anonymous and was committed to sobriety.Her filing said there was no written or verbal understanding like the one Mr. Pitt described, claiming that Mr. Pitt had, in fact, rejected the idea that there needed to be a plan in case the relationship ended.In their lawsuits, Mr. Pitt and Ms. Jolie shared divergent accounts of how negotiations around him buying her portion of the wine company fell apart.Mr. Pitt’s lawsuit asserted that Ms. Jolie pulled out of the tentative deal last year after a judge overseeing the custody dispute issued a ruling against her, prompting her to turn to Stoli Group.Ms. Jolie’s countersuit claimed, however, that Mr. Pitt had been the one to pull out of the deal after she declined to agree to his nondisparagement clause, forcing her to turn to another buyer. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Music

      Nirvana Wins Lawsuit Over Naked Baby on ‘Nevermind’ Album Cover

      by

      Spencer Elden, who was pictured as a baby on the cover of “Nevermind,” argued in his lawsuit that the grunge rock group had engaged in “child pornography.”A federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a man who, as a baby, had graced the cover of Nirvana’s seminal album, “Nevermind,” and argued 30 years later that the iconic photo of him drifting naked in a pool had been a form of sexual exploitation.The man, Spencer Elden, 31, accused Nirvana in his complaint of engaging in child pornography after it used a photo of him for the cover of “Nevermind,” the 1991 album that catapulted the Seattle grunge rock band to international fame.The judge, Fernando M. Olguin, wrote in his eight-page ruling that because Mr. Elden had learned about the album cover more than 10 years ago, he had waited too long to file his lawsuit, making his claims untimely.The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against the estate of Kurt Cobain; the musician’s former bandmates, David Grohl and Krist Novoselic; and Mr. Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love, among other parties. Bert H. Deixler, a lawyer for the defendants, said in a statement that they were “pleased this meritless case has been brought to a swift conclusion.”Robert Y. Lewis, one of Mr. Elden’s lawyers, did not respond to an email seeking comment on Sunday.The dismissal came after Judge Olguin dismissed the case in January for another reason: Mr. Elden’s lawyers had missed a deadline to respond to a motion for dismissal by the lawyers for Nirvana.Judge Olguin had allowed Mr. Elden’s lawyers to file a second amended complaint to address “the alleged defects” in the defendants’ motion to dismiss.But the dismissal on Friday appeared to end the legal back-and-forth.Mr. Elden, an artist living in Los Angeles County, has gone to therapy for years to work through how the album cover affected him, his lawyers have said, arguing that his privacy had been invaded, according to court records.He had been seeking $150,000 from each of the 15 people and companies named in the complaint.The photo of Mr. Elden, who was then four months old, was picked from among dozens of pictures of babies by the photographer Kirk Weddle. Mr. Cobain envisioned the album cover showing a baby underwater.Mr. Weddle paid Mr. Elden’s parents $200 for the picture, which was later altered to show the baby chasing a dollar bill, dangling from a fishhook.In the years that followed, Mr. Elden’s opinion about the photo changed. Initially, he appeared to celebrate his part in the classic cover, recreating the moment for the album’s 10th, 17th, 20th and 25th anniversaries, though not naked.“It’s cool but weird to be part of something so important that I don’t even remember,” he said in 2016 in an interview with The New York Post, in which he posed holding the album cover at 25.He also expressed anger at the people who still talked about it, telling GQ Australia that he was not comfortable with people seeing him naked. “I didn’t really have a choice,” he said.In their motion to dismiss, lawyers for Nirvana said that in 2003, when Mr. Elden was 12 years old, he acknowledged in an interview that he would probably always be known as the baby on the album cover.According to the lawyers, he said at the time, “I’m probably gonna get some money from it.” More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      Frank Miller Sues Widow of Comics Magazine Editor for the Return of Artworks

      by

      Two of Miller’s original drawings that were used in 1980s issues of David Anthony Kraft’s magazine Comics Interview were gifts, Kraft’s wife says. Miller says they were not.The comic writer and artist Frank Miller is suing the widow and the estate of a comics magazine founder over two pieces of promotional art he created that she was trying to sell at auction. The art, which appeared on covers of David Anthony Kraft’s magazine Comics Interview in the 1980s, includes an early depiction of Batman and a female Robin — from the 1986 The Dark Knight Returns series — and is potentially a valuable collectible.The lawsuit seeks the return of the Batman piece, which was used on the cover of Comics Interview No. 31 in 1986, as well as art depicting the title character of Miller’s 1983 Ronin series. He had sent both to Kraft for his use in the publication; the Ronin artwork was used as the cover of Comics Interview No. 2 in 1983. Miller contended in the court papers that he and Kraft agreed they were on loan, citing “custom and usage in the trade at the time,” and that he made repeated requests for their return.But Kraft’s widow, Jennifer Bush-Kraft, disagreed with Miller’s assertions. “My husband kept all his correspondence,” she said in a phone interview. “When I say all of it, I don’t know if you can comprehend the level of meticulousness. He bound all of this correspondence by year, by name and in alphabetical order by company.”When the question was raised about demands before 2022 to return the artwork, she said, she searched her husband’s files and found no such requests.Silenn Thomas, the chief executive of Frank Miller Ink, said in an email that Miller would not comment on the ongoing legal matter. The lawsuit, which was first reported by Law360, was filed on Monday in the Gainesville division of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.Bush-Kraft said she believed that Miller had gifted the art to Kraft. “If it was not given, David would have given it back,” she said. (Another promotional piece by Miller, for his Sin City comic, was used by Kraft in the 1990s, and was returned, he said in the lawsuit.)“He wouldn’t have ruined the relationship with someone he would potentially work with in the future,” she continued. “He certainly wouldn’t have ruined his relationship” with DC Comics, which published The Dark Knight Returns and Ronin. The art was created for promotional use, she said, and it was common practice for Kraft to keep those types of pieces.The dispute started in the spring, and in May, a lawyer for Miller sent a cease-and-desist letter after Miller learned of a potential sale of the works on Comic Connect, an online auction house devoted to comics and pop culture memorabilia, saying he had given them to Kraft as a loan and expected their return after a period of time.A lawyer representing Metropolis Collectibles, a sister company of Comic Connect, wrote in response that “the actual, relevant ‘custom in the trade at the time’ was that comic artists would give — not loan — artworks to Mr. Kraft and other comic publishers in the hopes that publishers such as Mr. Kraft would use the artwork in their publications and thereby provide publicity and exposure to the artist and their work.” The lawyer also wrote that because Miller was only just now demanding the artwork be returned, decades later, his request might be untimely because of the expiration of the statute of limitations and under other theories.But Miller, in the court filing, wrote that he and his publisher had sought the return of the works directly and indirectly since the 1980s, and that they believed the works were lost. Miller is seeking damages for the value of the works “in an amount, exceeding $75,000, to be determined at trial.”The sale of the artwork could be lucrative: In June, the cover of Issue No. 1 of The Dark Knight Returns was auctioned for $2.4 million. In 2011, a page from Issue No. 3 of the series that showed the older Batman and Carrie Kelley — then a new, female Robin — mid-leap over the Gotham City skyline, sold for $448,125.“I can’t afford to go to court and I can’t afford not to go to court,” Bush-Kraft said. “I’m just one person. I’m not Frank Miller. I don’t have a company.”Currently, neither Miller nor Bush-Kraft is in possession of the art; Bush-Kraft had given it to Comic Connect ahead of the auction, which had been planned for June. (Both works were pulled from the auction before it started.)“We will let the court decide who owns the pieces, and in the meantime we are retaining possession,” said Stephen Fishler, the chief executive of Comic Connect and Metropolis Collectibles. More