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      Amber Heard Says She Has Decided to ‘Settle’ Johnny Depp Defamation Case

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      The long-running legal battle was heading for its next chapter in an appeals court, but Mr. Depp’s lawyers said Ms. Heard has agreed to pay $1 million to end it.The actress Amber Heard said on Monday that she did not plan to go forward with her appeal of the defamation case involving her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, writing in an Instagram post that she had decided to settle the long-running dispute following a defeat at trial earlier this year.In a statement, Benjamin Chew and Camille Vasquez, lawyers for Mr. Depp, said Ms. Heard agreed to pay $1 million to end the case — far less than the jury verdict requiring her to pay more than $8 million in damages.In June, the seven-person jury in Virginia found that Ms. Heard had defamed Mr. Depp when she described herself in a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” The jury awarded Mr. Depp more than $10 million in damages, but it also found that Mr. Depp had defamed Ms. Heard through a comment made by his lawyer, awarding Ms. Heard $2 million.Both sides had appealed the parts of the case that each had lost, indicating a long and costly battle was coming in Virginia’s Court of Appeals.But Ms. Heard said on Monday that she did not wish to continue the case, citing a financial and psychological toll.Our Coverage of the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard TrialA trial between the formerly married actors became a fierce battleground over the truth about their relationship.What to Know: Johnny Depp and Amber Heard sued each other with competing defamation claims, amid mutual accusations of domestic abuse.The Verdict: The jury ruled that Mr. Depp was defamed by Ms. Heard in her op-ed, but also that she had been defamed by one of his lawyers.Possible Effects: Lawyers say that the outcome of the trial could embolden others accused of sexual abuse to try their luck with juries, marking a new era for the #MeToo movement.The Media’s Role: As the trial demonstrates, by sharing claims of sexual abuse the press assumes the risks that come with antagonizing the rich, powerful and litigious.“After a great deal of deliberation I have made a very difficult decision to settle the defamation case brought against me by my ex-husband in Virginia,” her post said.In their statement, Mr. Depp’s lawyers sought to counter any possible perception that the agreement was a victory for Ms. Heard, writing that the $1 million payment “reinforces Ms. Heard’s acknowledgment of the conclusion of the legal system’s rigorous pursuit for justice.”“We are pleased to formally close the door on this painful chapter for Mr. Depp, who made clear throughout this process that his priority was about bringing the truth to light,” the statement said. “The jury’s unanimous decision and the resulting judgment in Mr. Depp’s favor against Ms. Heard remain fully in place.”Mr. Depp’s lawyers said he planned to donate the payment to charity.Lawyers for Ms. Heard did not immediately respond to requests for comment.For weeks, the livestreamed trial became an internet preoccupation, with much of the vitriol targeting Ms. Heard, whose claims of domestic violence and sexual assault became the subject of memes and mockery. In her post, Ms. Heard indicated that the online abuse was a factor in her decision to not see her appeal through.“The vilification I have faced on social media is an amplified version of the ways in which women are re-victimised when they come forward,” the statement said. “I make this decision having lost faith in the American legal system, where my unprotected testimony served as entertainment and social media fodder.”She said in the post that the terms of the agreement did not restrict what she could say about the case.Mr. Depp has repeatedly denied abusing Ms. Heard, and throughout the trial, he portrayed her as the aggressor in the relationship.Mr. Depp and Ms. Heard have been locked in legal proceedings around the claims for years. In Britain, a judge had ruled that there was evidence that Mr. Depp had repeatedly assaulted Ms. Heard. That ruling came in a libel suit that Mr. Depp had filed after The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper, called him a “wife beater” in a headline. The judge in that case had ruled that the defendants had shown that what they published was “substantially true.”Ms. Heard said in her post that she was not willing to see the claims aired in a court again — a possible outcome if her appeal was to succeed.“I simply cannot go through that for a third time,” Ms. Heard said in her post, later writing, “I cannot afford to risk an impossible bill — one that is not just financial, but also psychological, physical and emotional.”Since Mr. Depp’s victory in Virginia, he has tiptoed back into the public eye, appearing in a fashion show backed by Rihanna and working on films.Ms. Heard has remained almost entirely out of the spotlight. In federal court, she has been battling her insurance company, which has been seeking to avoid responsibility for shouldering the costs of the jury verdict. It was not immediately clear whether the insurance company would take responsibility for the $1 million payment. More

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      Warren Beatty Is Accused of Sexually Assaulting a Minor in 1973

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      In a lawsuit filed this week, the plaintiff says Mr. Beatty groomed and coerced her into sex when she was 14 and 15. The actor, who had starred in “Bonnie and Clyde,” was about 35 at the time.Warren Beatty, the famed “Bonnie and Clyde” actor and Oscar-winning director, was accused in a lawsuit this week of sexually assaulting a girl in 1973 when she was 14 and 15.The suit, filed on Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that Mr. Beatty used his status as a Hollywood star to “groom, manipulate, exploit and coerce sexual contact” with a minor.The plaintiff, Kristina Charlotte Hirsch, alleges that the abuse took place over several months after she met Mr. Beatty on a film set in Los Angeles when he was about 35. Although the lawsuit does not refer to Mr. Beatty by name, it identifies the primary defendant as an actor who was nominated for an Academy Award for portraying Clyde in “Bonnie and Clyde,” as Mr. Beatty was in 1968.Representatives for Mr. Beatty, now 85, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The lawsuit was filed under a California law from 2019 that allows adults to temporarily override the statute of limitations and file claims related to sexual abuse that are decades old. The so-called look-back window for lawsuits from people older than 40 expires on Jan. 1, 2023.In the lawsuit, Ms. Hirsch describes a relationship with Mr. Beatty that began with him commenting on her looks and providing his phone number before extending invitations to his hotel room. She says he offered to help her with homework and took her on car rides.Eventually, she says, their interactions came to include “oral sex, simulated sex and finally coerced sexual intercourse.” Ms. Hirsch is suing for damages for “severe emotional, physical and psychological distress” that she says continues to this day.Ms. Hirsch’s lawyers, Michael Reck and Michael G. Finnegan, declined to comment, saying they would let the complaint speak for itself.The younger brother of the actress Shirley MacLaine, Mr. Beatty emerged as Hollywood royalty in the 1960s. His role in “Bonnie and Clyde,” which he both starred in and produced, cemented his status as a maverick filmmaker and central figure in what became known as the New Hollywood of the 1970s.The film’s graphic and morally ambivalent portrayal of the violent outlaws divided critics. Mr. Beatty went on to success as a director with the hit comedy “Heaven Can Wait” and won an Academy Award in 1982 for directing the political drama “Reds,” which he also starred in.Mr. Beatty, who became nearly as known for his relationships with famous women offscreen as for his performances, has been married to the actress Annette Bening since 1992. More

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      Sheriff Delivers Results of ‘Rust’ Shooting Investigation to Prosecutors

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      The Santa Fe County District Attorney’s Office must now decide whether to file charges. The sheriff’s office sought to determine how a live round got into the gun Alec Baldwin was holding.The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday delivered to local prosecutors its investigative report into the shooting on the set of “Rust” that killed the film’s cinematographer and wounded its director, bringing the district attorney’s office closer to a decision about whether to file criminal charges.The submission of the report, which the sheriff’s office declined to immediately release, came more than a year after the office began investigating how live bullets ended up on the set in New Mexico. The film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, 42, was fatally shot when a gun the actor Alec Baldwin was rehearsing with went off.On Thursday morning, the sheriff’s investigative team met with the district attorney, Mary Carmack-Altwies, and the special prosecutor appointed to help with the case, Andrea Reeb, said Heather Brewer, a spokeswoman for the Santa Fe County District Attorney’s Office.“The district attorney and her team of investigators and prosecutors will now begin a thorough review of the information and evidence to make a thoughtful, timely decision about whether to bring charges,” Ms. Brewer said in a statement.A spokesman for the sheriff’s office, Juan Rios, said the report would not be publicly released before Nov. 10. Ms. Brewer said the sheriff’s office needed to redact the document before sharing it with the public.In an August request asking state officials for more money, Ms. Carmack-Altwies wrote that she did not have sufficient funds to prosecute such a high-profile case, and that up to four people could be charged.County investigators have interviewed dozens of people about the shooting, including Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the armorer who was in charge of guns and ammunition on the film set; Dave Halls, the movie’s first assistant director, who took the gun from Ms. Gutierrez-Reed and later handed it to Mr. Baldwin; and Seth Kenney, who has been described as the primary supplier of guns and ammunition for “Rust.”Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, Mr. Halls, Mr. Kenney and Mr. Baldwin, an actor and producer of the movie, have all denied culpability. Several lawsuits have been filed, alleging, among other things, a failure to properly follow safety protocols; Ms. Hutchins’s family recently reached a settlement with Mr. Baldwin and other “Rust” producers.Ms. Hutchins was fatally shot during the filming of the western on Oct. 21, 2021, while Mr. Baldwin was practicing drawing an old-fashioned revolver for a scene inside a spare wooden church. He had been told it contained no live rounds, but it suddenly fired, killing Ms. Hutchins and wounding Joel Souza, the film’s director.In a television interview last year, Mr. Baldwin said that he was told the gun was safe to handle and that Ms. Hutchins was instructing him where he should point it. The actor said he did not pull the trigger, but rather that he pulled back the hammer of the gun and let it go just before it discharged.State regulators at the New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Bureau found a serious breach of industry standards, which require that live ammunition should never be brought on set. The production, which plans to resume filming in January, is contesting the fine issued by regulators.If the district attorney decides to bring charges, a judge in New Mexico would consider whether there is probable cause for the charges to move forward. More

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      Kevin Spacey Is Cleared of Anthony Rapp’s Battery Claim

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      A jury found Mr. Spacey not liable in a civil trial. Mr. Rapp, an original cast member in “Rent,” had filed a lawsuit accusing Mr. Spacey of making a sexual advance when Mr. Rapp was 14.A federal jury in Manhattan found Kevin Spacey not liable for battery on Thursday after the actor Anthony Rapp filed a lawsuit accusing Mr. Spacey of climbing on top of him and making a sexual advance in 1986, when Mr. Rapp was 14.Mr. Rapp’s claim was one of the most prominent in the early days of the #MeToo movement, as accusers started to come forward with allegations against high-profile men in the entertainment, political and business worlds. Mr. Spacey, a star of the political drama “House of Cards” and a lauded actor who had hosted the Tony Awards months earlier, quickly experienced career blowback.The disclosure by Mr. Rapp, which BuzzFeed News published in October 2017, was followed by more than a dozen other sexual misconduct accusations against Mr. Spacey. He has pleaded not guilty to sexual assault charges in Britain, and outside the courthouse on Thursday, one of his lawyers, Jennifer L. Keller, said he would be proven innocent in all cases.The civil trial to consider Mr. Rapp’s claim of battery hinged on his account of a night in 1986, when, he said, he attended a party at Mr. Spacey’s New York apartment during a Broadway season in which both of them were acting in plays. Mr. Spacey, who was 26 at the time, denied that such an encounter ever occurred.After less than an hour and a half of deliberation, an 11-person jury in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan decided in favor of Mr. Spacey, whose lawyers had hammered Mr. Rapp with questions that challenged his memory of events said to have occurred more than 36 years ago.Following the verdict, Mr. Spacey stood up with tears in his eyes and hugged his lawyers. He was silent during his exit from the courthouse, but Ms. Keller told reporters, “We’re just grateful that the jury saw the truth.”Anthony Rapp sued Mr. Spacey, accusing him of making a sexual advance when Mr. Rapp was 14.Eduardo Munoz/ReutersMr. Rapp was straight-faced in response to the decision. In a statement later posted to his Twitter account, Mr. Rapp said he was “deeply grateful” for the opportunity to have his case heard before a jury.“Bringing this lawsuit was always about shining a light,” the statement said, “as part of the larger movement to stand up against all forms of sexual violence.”Mr. Rapp, an actor on “Star Trek: Discovery” and who is best known for his originating role in the musical “Rent,” was able to bring his claim under a New York State law, the Child Victims Act. The law included a temporary “look-back” window during which old claims that had already passed the statute of limitations could be revived.The jury determined that there was not enough evidence to prove that Mr. Spacey had touched one of Mr. Rapp’s “sexual or intimate” parts, meaning the claim could not be revived under the law. Mr. Rapp testified that when Mr. Spacey picked him up, one of his hands “grazed” his buttocks.Mr. Rapp’s lawyers presented testimony from three men who said he had told them in the mid-1990s or earlier about an encounter with Mr. Spacey. The defense focused on inconsistencies and picked at vagueness in his account, highlighting that Mr. Rapp, 50, presented no third-party corroboration of the gathering on the night that he said the encounter had occurred. Midway through the trial, the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, dismissed a claim against Mr. Spacey, 63, of intentional infliction of emotional distress.“There is no evidence that this happened and plenty of evidence that it didn’t,” Ms. Keller said in closing arguments.Both actors took the stand to testify, presenting disparate accounts about what happened in the spring of 1986, when Mr. Rapp was a teenage actor in the play “Precious Sons” and Mr. Spacey was in “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”Mr. Rapp testified that he had withdrawn to the bedroom to watch late-night TV during Mr. Spacey’s party because he did not know any other guests. Once the party wound down, Mr. Rapp testified, Mr. Spacey approached him, picked him up, laid him on the bed and climbed on top of him, pressing his groin into Mr. Rapp’s hip.“I knew something was really wrong now,” Mr. Rapp said, recalling feeling frozen in place.He testified that he was able to wriggle out from under Mr. Spacey, who appeared intoxicated, and escape to the nearby bathroom. Mr. Rapp recalled that before he exited the apartment, Mr. Spacey said, “Are you sure you want to leave?”The defense contended that Mr. Rapp had fabricated the claim to get attention for himself and his career, which he denied.“Does it look like he is enjoying the attention of this?” a lawyer for Mr. Rapp, Richard M. Steigman, said in closing arguments. “He is doing this to hold Kevin Spacey accountable.”Despite issuing an apology shortly after Mr. Rapp made public his allegation, Mr. Spacey testified that the encounter never happened, that he had never been alone with Mr. Rapp and that he had not had a party at his apartment in the time frame Mr. Rapp described.Peter Gallagher and Mr. Spacey in the Broadway show “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” in 1986.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesMr. Spacey said he did recall that Mr. Rapp had attended with a friend a performance of “Long Day’s Journey,” and that afterward, Mr. Spacey had invited them to dinner, then to a nightclub and then back to his apartment.Mr. Spacey said he had flirted with Mr. Rapp’s friend, John Barrowman, who was 19 at the time. Back at Mr. Spacey’s apartment, he said, he pushed Mr. Barrowman gently back onto the bed when Mr. Rapp left for the bathroom. Feeling that Mr. Rapp was too young to see them in a romantic situation, Mr. Spacey said, the two men sat up when Mr. Rapp returned.“I had no interest in Mr. Rapp joining us,” Mr. Spacey testified.Mr. Rapp testified that on the night they all went to the nightclub — which he described as his second time meeting Mr. Spacey — they did not go back to the apartment. In a videotaped deposition, Mr. Barrowman, an actor known for his role in the TV show “Doctor Who,” recalled the series of events that night as Mr. Spacey had.Mr. Rapp called the alleged encounter with Mr. Spacey the most traumatic event of his life. Mr. Rapp testified about moments when he later saw Mr. Spacey onscreen — in films like “American Beauty” and “Working Girl” — and felt startled, sometimes feeling as if “poked with a cattle prod.”Mr. Spacey’s lawyers suggested throughout the trial that Mr. Rapp was motivated to fabricate the accusation because he was envious of Mr. Spacey’s career or frustrated that Mr. Spacey was not public about his relationships with men.Mr. Rapp denied those motivations, asserting that he had come forward to seek belated justice for himself. But during a lengthy and tense cross-examination, he acknowledged that he might have been mistaken about a couple details, including that the alleged encounter had occurred in a separate bedroom in Mr. Spacey’s apartment.Mr. Spacey’s lawyers also questioned Mr. Rapp on similarities between his account and moments of staging in “Precious Sons.” In the play, the character of Mr. Rapp’s father, who was played by Ed Harris, had picked up the character of Mr. Rapp in the same manner that he described Mr. Spacey picking him up — like a groom carrying a bride. Mr. Harris also climbed on Mr. Rapp twice during the play.Mr. Rapp dismissed the idea that there was any connection, saying the staging had been done “with care and consent.”Mr. Rapp’s lawyers pointed to Mr. Spacey’s initial response to Mr. Rapp’s accusation, in which he did not categorically deny the encounter, as supporting evidence for their client. In a statement Mr. Spacey posted after the BuzzFeed article, he said he had no memory of the encounter, adding, “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 his testimony, Mr. Spacey said he regretted making that apology, attributing the decision to advisers who feared that people would call Mr. Spacey a “victim blamer” if he denied the allegation outright.“I’ve learned a lesson,” Mr. Spacey testified, “which is, never apologize for something you didn’t do.”One additional accuser, Andy Holtzman, testified during the trial that Mr. Spacey had groped him in an office in 1981, when Mr. Holtzman was 27 and Mr. Spacey was several years younger. Mr. Spacey denied doing so. No other accusations were discussed in front of the jury, and Judge Kaplan instructed the jury to disregard two instances when Mr. Rapp had alluded to other allegations against Mr. Spacey during his testimony.As a result of the sexual misconduct allegations against him, Mr. Spacey — who has won two Oscars and a Tony — lost major roles, with an arbitrator ordering him to pay $31 million to the “House of Cards” studio for breach of contract.But the jury’s verdict on Thursday adds to the list of legal victories for Mr. Spacey. Prosecutors dropped a sexual assault charge in Massachusetts, and an anonymous accuser who had originally sued alongside Mr. Rapp decided not to continue his claim when Judge Kaplan ruled that the plaintiff would need to identify himself publicly.“What’s next,” Ms. Keller said outside the courthouse on Thursday, “is that Kevin Spacey is going to be proven innocent of anything he’s been accused of.” More

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      Two Black Comedians Sue Police Over Search at Atlanta Airport

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      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

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      Anthony Rapp Said Anguish Returned When He Saw Kevin Spacey Onscreen

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      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

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

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      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