Kevin Spacey Not Guilty in U.K. Sexual Assault Trial
Kevin Spacey was found not guilty of nine counts of sexual assault in a trial that took place in London. Spacey was the defendant in a case brought forth by four men that accused the actor of multiple instances of sexual assault that took place between 2001 and 2013.
Per The Guardian, the jury deliberated just over 12 hours before reaching their verdict in the trial that latest four weeks in the Southwark crown court.
The outlet noted that following the reading of the verdict, Spacey looked to the jury with his hand on his chest and mouthed, “Thank you, thank you.”
The Spacey sexual assault trial notably featured testimony from Elton John and his husband, David Furnish. John and Furnish testified in support of Spacey regarding an accusation from one of the plaintiffs that accused the actor of groping him. The incident allegedly occurred while the plaintiff drove Spacey to John’s White Tie & Tiara Ball. The plaintiff said the incident happened in 2004 or 2005. However, John and Furnish testified that Spacey only attended the ball in 2001.
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This was the latest trial involving Spacey and accusations involving sexual assault. In October 2022, Spacey was found not liable of battery in a civil trial where actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of sexually assaulting him in 1986. At that time, Rapp was 14, and Spacey was 26.
Rapp first publicly discussed his alleged encounter with Spacey in a piece published by BuzzFeed News in October 2017. It was one of the prominent stories at the beginning of the #MeToo movement. He told BuzzFeed news about the incident, “The older I get, and the more I know, I feel very fortunate that something worse didn’t happen. And at the same time, the older I get, the more I can’t believe it. I could never imagine [that] anyone else I know would do something like that to a 14-year-old boy.”
Additionally, a criminal case was dismissed in Massachusetts in 2019 that accused Spacey of allegedly groping an 18-year-old man at a resort in Nantucket.
