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Kevin Spacey Faces Felony Charge in Misconduct Case

By Sopan Deb
New York Times
December 24, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/24/movies/kevin-spacey-criminal-charges.html

Kevin Spacey, who is scheduled to be arraigned in Massachusetts on Jan. 7 on a charge of indecent assault and battery.
Photo by Chris Pizzello

Kevin Spacey will be charged with a felony following an accusation of sexual assault made public last year, the authorities in Nantucket said on Monday.

The charge, first reported by The Boston Globe, is in connection with an accusation of misconduct that was made by a former television anchor, Heather Unruh, who said that Mr. Spacey sexually assaulted her 18-year-old son in July 2016 at a bar in Nantucket.

Michael O’Keefe, the Cape and Islands district attorney in Massachusetts, said in a statement that Mr. Spacey would be arraigned on Jan. 7 for one charge of indecent assault and battery, the first criminal charge levied against him as a result of sexual misconduct allegations. The statement also said there was a public show cause hearing in Nantucket District Court last Thursday, after which Clerk Magistrate Brian Kearney issued the criminal complaint.

A representative for Mr. Spacey did not respond to a request for comment. But the actor has apologized for one incident and denied at least one other accusation of wrongdoing.

Soon after the Globe report was published on Monday, a video was posted on Mr. Spacey’s Twitter account. In the roughly three-minute clip, called “Let Me Be Frank” (a likely reference to Frank Underwood, the character he played on the Netflix show “House of Cards”), Mr. Spacey gives a monologue while wearing an apron and working in the kitchen.

“I know what you want,” Mr. Spacey says with a deep Southern accent, staring straight at the camera. “Oh sure, they may have tried to separate us, but what we have is too strong. It’s too powerful. I mean, after all, we shared everything, you and I. I told you my deepest, darkest secrets. I showed you exactly what people are capable of. I shocked you with my honesty, but mostly I challenged you and made you think. And you trusted me, even though you knew you shouldn’t. So we’re not done no matter what anyone says.”

Ms. Unruh said at a news conference last year that Mr. Spacey gave her son “drink after drink,” before reaching down his pants and touching his genitals at a restaurant called the Club Car. Ms. Unruh’s son told Mr. Spacey that he was 21, although he was only 18, according to Ms. Unruh, but she added: “Kevin Spacey had no right to sexually assault him. There was no consent.”

Ms. Unruh did not respond to a request for comment.

She is one of more than a dozen people who have accused Mr. Spacey of sexual misconduct. The first was the actor Anthony Rapp, who said Mr. Spacey made an inappropriate sexual advance on him in Mr. Spacey’s apartment in 1986 when he was just 14 years old. Mr. Spacey apologized on Twitter and came out as gay with a statement that came under an avalanche of criticism.

Just days after the Rapp accusations were made public in October 2017, Mr. Spacey’s publicist provided a statement to The New York Times that said Mr. Spacey was “taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment.”

Mitchell Garabedian, a lawyer for the accuser in the Nantucket case, said in a statement Monday: “The complainant has shown a tremendous amount of courage in coming forward. Let the facts be presented, the relevant law applied and a just and fair verdict rendered.”

And in a phone call as reported by The Globe, Ms. Unruh said, “I’m pleased that the case is moving forward in the judicial system.”

In September, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office declined to prosecute Mr. Spacey in connection with an allegation that he sexually assaulted a man in West Hollywood in 1992. Mr. Spacey is also reportedly under investigation by the authorities in London for several accusations of inappropriate behavior.

Mr. Spacey’s video on Monday was his first post on Twitter since the post responding to Mr. Rapp in October 2017.




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