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CNN
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Kevin Spacey will return to another courtroom on Thursday, as jury selection begins in the civil case brought by actor Anthony Rapp.
Rapp, best known for his role in “Star Trek: Discovery,” accused Spacey in 2020 of assault, battery and emotional distress.
In 2017, Rapp revealed that Spacey first made out with him in 1986 when Rapp was 14 years old while they were performing in Broadway shows.
The suit accuses Spacey of grabbing Rapp’s buttocks and Spacey of placing the then-teen on a bed and placing her body on top of Rapp.
Spacey apologized profusely shortly after Rapp’s revelation, tweeting that he was “horrified to hear what he said” and saying he had no recollection of the event.
“…If I had done what he said then, I would have apologized to him for such a drunken and inappropriate behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he has caused her all these years. ,” Spacey said in his tweet. at that time.
Chase Scolnick, an attorney for Spacey, said in a statement to CNN that he expects Spacey to be vindicated at trial.
“We look forward to seeing Mr. Rapp’s claims tried before an impartial jury on social media, and hope Mr. Spacey is vindicated,” Scolnick said. .
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan presided over the hearing.
When the Me Too campaign began in 2017 to encourage sexual abuse survivors to speak publicly about allegations of abuse by powerful men, rumors of alleged inappropriate behavior by Spacey began to emerge.
A Massachusetts man said Spacey groped his 18-year-old self for a bus at a Nantucket restaurant. A criminal complaint said the bus driver told police that Spacey bought him some alcoholic drinks, and that he allegedly unzipped the suspect’s pants and rubbed his penis, inside and out. his pants, for about three minutes.
Prosecutors eventually dropped the criminal case against Spacey, after the fifth accused pleaded on the witness stand after being asked about his missing phone call, and the fact that he deleted the text messages.
In addition to the Manhattan civil trial, Spacey also faces criminal charges in England.
Spacey was charged with four counts of sexually assaulting three men and one count of engaging in sexual activity without consent by the British Crown Prosecution Service in May. .
The charges relate to two incidents in London in 2005, two more in 2008 and another in Gloucestershire, west England, in 2013. accused of the 2005 incidents are now in their 40s, and the two men who are said to have been involved. the 2008 and 2013 incidents are now 30 years old, London’s Metropolitan Police said.
Spacey has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Shortly after a CNN investigation in 2017 revealed that several current and former members of the production staff of the Netflix series “House of Cards” claimed that Spacey had harassed them, Netflix cut ties with the actor.
In December 2018, Spacey posted a video to his Twitter account speaking in the guise of his “House of Cards” character Frank Underwood. The character died on the show after Spacey was fired.
“Of course, some people believed everything and were waiting on air to hear me confess all these things,” he said with a Southern accent. “They’re just dying to tell me that everything is true and that I’ve got what I deserve. Wouldn’t it be easy if everything was easy? Only you and I know it isn’t. simply, not in politics, not in life.”
“But you don’t believe bad things without evidence, do you? Aren’t you quick to judge without telling the truth? Did you do it?” he said.
Last year, Spacey was ordered to pay nearly $31 million to Media Rights Capital, the production company behind the show.
He was cast in the Italian film “The Man Who Drawn God,” his first project since the allegations came out in 2017, which is in post-production, according to Imdb.
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