| A jury has concluded that Kevin Spacey did not molest fellow actor Anthony Rapp in the 1980s. |
The verdict in the New York civil trial came after jurors found Spacey's accuser didn’t prove his claim that the Oscar winner made an unwanted sexual advance towards him when he was 14.
Anthony Rapp, now 50, testified that Spacey climbed on top of him on a bed and pressed his groin into Rapp’s hip until he was able to wriggle free, in 1986.
Spacey, now 63, denied the allegation on the stand and said he had never been alone with Rapp.
The deliberations took just over an hour and as the result was read out, Spacey dropped his read, but later hugged his lawyers as he was leaving the courtroom.
During closing arguments Thursday, Rapp’s lawyer urged jurors to discredit Spacey’s recollection of the events.
“It’s inconsistent. It's not worthy of your belief,” the lawyer, Richard Steigman, said, citing what he claimed were gaps in Spacey's memory and changes in his recollection.
Spacey's lawyer, Jennifer Keller, argued during her closing arguments that Rapp's story was a fabrication. She advanced several theories for why Rapp might have lied, including a desire for attention or jealousy of Spacey's acting success.
"Mr. Rapp is getting more attention in this trial than he has in his entire acting life," Keller said.
Earlier this week, Spacey broke down in tears as he took to the stand and spoke about why he kept his sexuality a secret until he was 58.
He claimed his father, Thomas Fowler, would scream at him as a child when he thought he was gay.
Spacey told the court he had been forced to listen to his father's homophobic comments "for hours and hours" as a child.
"I grew up in a situation as a child where I wasn't comfortable talking about these things.
"My father used to yell at me about the idea I might be gay because I was interested in the theatre," he said on the stand.
"My father used to scream at me 'don't be a F-word' that is very derogatory to the gay community. It was very disturbing for me because I was beginning to discover my own sexuality.
"I think I had a degree of shame but I think also I wanted people to remember the characters I was playing and not to know too much about me. That's my reasoning, I was protecting the work."
Rapp, who starred in the Broadway musical Rent, was suing Spacey for battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
On Monday, district Judge Lewis Kaplan threw out Mr Rapp's claims of emotional distress, saying elements of the claim duplicated Mr Rapp's allegations that he was a victim of assault and battery.
Rapp was asking for $40m (£35m) in punitive and compensatory damages.
He first made the allegations in a 2017 Buzzfeed article, and the two-times Oscar winner was subsequently fired from his lead role in Netflix series House of Cards.
