Spacey Attorney Challenges Nantucket Accuser’s Credibility

By Wheeler Cowperthwaite
Cape Cod Times
December 27, 2018

https://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20181227/spacey-attorney-challenges-nantucket-accusers-credibility

The video that allegedly shows Kevin Spacey sexually assaulting a teenager on Nantucket in 2016 lasts only a second or less, according to testimony at the show-cause hearing where the actor was charged with indecent assault and battery.

The Dec. 20 hearing in front of Clerk-Magistrate Ryan Kearney featured testimony solely from state police Trooper Gerald Donovan.

The accuser, who was 18 at the time of the alleged incident, appeared in the courtroom but was asked to leave, in keeping with court procedures, according to a recording of the hearing created by Nantucket District Court staff.

During the hearing, Spacey, 59, also referred to by his real name of Kevin Fowler, was represented by Boston attorney Juliane Balliro and Los Angeles attorney Alan Jackson. The prosecution was represented by Donovan, and no prosecutors with the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s Office appear on the recording.

Jackson did not return a call Thursday seeking comment.

The teen had told Donovan during a November 2017 interview that he sent his girlfriend a Snapchat video of Spacey touching the front of his pants because she did not believe his prior text message that the actor was “hitting on him,” according to police reports. The two met late one night in July 2016 at the Club Car bar and restaurant, where the teen worked as a busboy.

Jackson asked Donovan if the teen initially had described his clothing that night incorrectly. Donovan said he had, and the person in the video, alleged to be the teen, was wearing a blue T-shirt, not a red button-up shirt as he described in his interview.

“What the video shows is a person’s hand making contact with the shirt?” Jackson asked.

“Correct,” Donovan replied.

Jackson said the video was described as one of the last times Spacey touched the teen, and noted the person in front in the video is Spacey, with the teen behind him. When he said the video lasted less than a second, Donovan agreed it was “very brief.”

Jackson asked Kearney to allow him to question the teen under oath, especially if Donovan did not call him as a witness. The magistrate did not allow him to question anyone other than Donovan.

“This is what they call a probable cause hearing, and it’s pretty one-sided, so you’re not going to be able to call other witnesses,” Kearney said.

Instead, Donovan recounted his interview with the teen at the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s Office on Nov. 22, 2017. Donovan conducted that interview with Detective Brett Morneau of the Nantucket Police Department.

Kearney then allowed Jackson to ask the trooper questions but told him he would not allow it to become a cross-examination.

Jackson asked a series of questions that appeared to challenge the teen’s credibility.

The attorney got Donovan to confirm that the teen had not immediately reported the alleged attack, that he had first approached Spacey and that he had told Spacey he was a 23-year-old college student majoring in business.

Jackson also confirmed through the trooper that the teen reported drinking four to five beers and four to five whiskeys and said he may have blacked out when he got home.

Jackson asked Donovan if the teen, rather than trying to get away from Spacey or trying to stop him from touching him, was instead texting his girlfriend during the alleged incident.

“Correct,” Donovan said.

The teen had told Donovan in the previous interview that Spacey touched or rubbed his penis several times over about three minutes. He also said he had tried to shift his body and move Spacey’s hands away, but Spacey kept putting his hands down the teen’s pants, according to a police report.

Jackson asked if the teen called his girlfriend after he got home and told her what happened.

“Yet (the girlfriend) indicated he never ... said a word to her about having been sexually assaulted by Kevin Spacey, correct?”

“Correct,” Donovan said.

He also tried to ask Donovan questions about Mitchell Garabedian, the attorney for the teen’s mother, and asked if he understood that the family may sue Spacey, seeking monetary damages. He said he wanted to get to financial motives that could be behind the allegations.

“I’m not aware,” Donovan said.

The teen’s mother, former Channel 5 news anchor Heather Unruh, went public with the allegations against Spacey at a November 2017 press conference after a police report was filed that prompted the investigation.

After Kearney said there was cause to issue the complaint, he asked what day would work for arraignment.

Balliro asked if Spacey could be arraigned that day.

“There’s no judge here, there’s no judge in the building,” Kearney said.

He said arraignments were held Mondays on the island.

“Is he on the East Coast for a period of time ...” Kearney asked before offering Jan. 7 and 15 as arraignment dates.

Jackson said Spacey would be available any day. The attorneys chose Jan. 7.

Indecent assault and battery on a person 14 or older carries a maximum prison sentence of five years or a 2?-year term at a house of correction. Anyone convicted of the offense must register as a sex offender.

Spacey, a two-time Oscar winner who has won multiple other acting awards, has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen men — some of them teens at the time of the alleged incidents — but the Nantucket case is the first to result in criminal charges.