NEW YORK — Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey goes on trial Thursday in Manhattan to defend himself against the first in a string of sexual assault allegations he faces worldwide.
Spacey, 63, is accused of forcing himself on a teenage boy almost half his age in the late 1980s. Actor Anthony Rapp claims he was 14 when Spacey allegedly thrust himself on top of him inside a bedroom at Spacey’s tony Upper West Side apartment.
Rapp, who filed a Manhattan Federal Court civil lawsuit, is demanding $40 million in damages. He claims the abuse happened at a party Spacey hosted in 1986, where Rapp was the youngest guest. His September 2020 lawsuit details how an intoxicated Spacey, then 26, groped his buttocks, lifted him onto a bed, and got on top of him.
Rapp “was forced to extricate himself,” ran to the bathroom, and left, according to the suit.
Spacey, whose real last name is Fowler, denies any wrongdoing.
He faces pending criminal charges in the U.K. based on allegations by three men who say he sexually assaulted them in 2005, 2008 and 2013. He is accused of “causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.” He has pleaded not guilty to those charges.
Rapp first levied his allegations against Spacey in October 2017 at the onset of the #MeToo movement. They were among the first that led to Spacey’s abrupt downfall from a beloved Oscar-winning actor to an accused serial pedophile.
Another man, identified in court papers as C.D., accused the “American Beauty” actor of raping and sexually abusing him when he was his acting student in Westchester County. But those claims and his inclusion in Rapp’s lawsuit were dismissed by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in June 2021 when he refused to be identified. C.D., who met Spacey when he was 12 and alleged the actor anally sodomized him, said coming forward publicly would retrigger his post traumatic stress disorder.
Rapp and C.D. filed their lawsuit under New York’s Child Victims Act, which allowed young victims of sexual assault to sue their alleged assailants for a one-year look-back period, extended in the pandemic, regardless of the statute of limitations laws. Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre successfully sued Prince Andrew under the same legislation.
Kaplan rejected Spacy’s efforts to dismiss Rapp’s lawsuit in June but tossed out an assault claim he said Rapp didn’t bring in time.
Rapp, who starred in “Star Trek” and the musical “Rent,” had a starring role on Broadway in “Precious Sons” with Ed Harris and Judith Ivey, at the time of the alleged abuse.
The accusations prompted Spacey to come out as gay after decades in the limelight. More than a dozen people have since made sexual misconduct against him, which have ranged in severity. Spacey has vehemently denied all allegations.
Spacey was fired from the hit Netflix series “House of Cards” as the accusations mounted. In August, a California appeals court upheld a judgment requiring he pay the show’s producers $31 million in a suit that accused him of systematically preying on young people on the set.
London’s Old Vic theater employees, where Spacey served as artistic director for 11 years, are among those who claim they were molested by the actor.
Richard Dreyfuss’ son, Harry Dreyfuss, accused Spacey groping him when his father was performing in London in 2008.
When Rapp told his story, Spacey said he didn’t remember it, but stopped short of denying it.
“(I)f I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years,” he said in 2017.
Spacey’s attorney, Chase Scolnick, and Peter Saghir, a lawyer for Rapp, did not return calls seeking comment.
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