Attorneys Make Closing Arguments in Kevin Spacey Sexual Misconduct Trial, Jury Begins Deliberations

Attorneys for Anthony Rapp portrayed Kevin Spacey as a voracious sexual predator in their closing statements in a $40 million civil lawsuit brought against the Oscar-winning actor.

“[Kevin Spacey] cannot control his sexual urges when they come up,” Richard Steigman, one of the lawyers on Rapp’s team, told the jury in a New York City courthouse on Thursday.

But Spacey’s legal team pushed back in their own closing remarks, painting Rapp as an attention-seeker who had provided wildly inconsistent accounts of his alleged assault and exaggerated the emotional impact of the incident in order to score a financial windfall. They pushed jurors not to give Rapp any financial restitution for the trauma he says he experienced after Spacey allegedly made unwanted sexual advances towards him when he was a teenager.

“Reject any compromised verdict,” said Jennifer Keller, an attorney for Spacey. “One penny is too much for something that didn’t happen.”

A jury has now begun deliberating its verdict. At the center of the battery trial is an explosive claim that Rapp first made in a 2017 BuzzFeed article, in which he said that Spacey lifted him on to a bed and climbed on top of him in a sexually suggestive manner when Rapp was 14 years old. The incident purportedly took place in 1986 after a party at Spacey’s house. Rapp called the event one of the “most traumatic” of his life. Spacey initially said he didn’t recall the incident, though he publicly expressed contrition, offering “the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.” In court, Spacey testified that he had only made that statement at the behest of his publicist and said he regretted it. Attorneys for Rapp seized on Spacey’s substance use in their closing arguments.

“There’s a lot of things that Kevin Spacey doesn’t remember,” Steigman said. “We know that Kevin Spacey was doing drugs, including cocaine, and drinking heavily back then.”

But Spacey’s lawyers have argued that Rapp, an actor who appears on “Star Trek: Discovery,” manufactured his claims out of professional jealousy over Spacey’s red-hot career. And they’ve seized on what they claim are inconsistencies in Rapp’s testimony. They have noted that Rapp described being trapped in a bedroom, but a floor plan of the studio apartment that they produced in court only showed a large open space, without any door separating it from the rest of the home.

“The star witness of our case was the floor plan,” Keller said.

The allegations against Spacey were made during an outpouring of stories of sexual harassment and assault that were gripping the entertainment industry, with abuse allegations leveled against high-profile figures such as Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K., Matt Lauer and Brett Ratner. Keller said that the #MeToo movement that sprung up during this period had a positive impact on dismantling systems that shielded the powerful, but she argued that Spacey does not belong in that conversation.

“This isn’t a team sport where you’re either on the Me Too side or the other side,” she said.

In his rebuttal, Steigman shook his head and muttered, “I only hope that [Spacey] doesn’t get away with it this time.” That angered Keller, who said it was an effort to allude to Spacey’s other legal issues, which include a $31 million settlement with “House of Cards” producer MRC for misbehavior on the Netflix show’s set and a pending trial in the U.K. It also drew a sharp rebuke from Judge Lewis A. Kaplan.

“It shouldn’t have been said,” Kaplan said. He said he will consider the impact of that statement if the jury rules in favor of Rapp.

Read More About:

Source: Read Full Article