In a Surprise Appearance, Kevin Spacey Returns to Court on Nantucket for Pre-trial Hearing in Sex Assault Case
By Chris Francescani
In a surprise appearance, Kevin Spacey returns to court on Nantucket for pre-trial hearing in sex assault case originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Actor Kevin Spacey made a surprise appearance on Monday in a Nantucket courtroom for another pretrial hearing in his sexual assault case, at which his defense attorney blasted the accuser and his mother for allegedly deleting exculpatory text exchanges from the son's phone before turning it over to investigators. Citing a forensic extraction report concerning the alleged victim’s phone recently turned over to the defense, Spacey’s attorney Alan Jackson made the case during an hourlong hearing that the accuser and his mother, former Boston ABC affiliate WCVB anchor Heather Unruh “cleansed” the phone of any information that could help exonerate Spacey before turning it over to police. “Here’s the revelation: Heather informed investigators that she had gone through the phone to remove anything that she described as [her son’s] 'frat boy activities,'" he charged. “Are you kidding me?” an incredulous Jackson wondered aloud. “Heather Unruh [and her son, the alleged victim] both went through the phone and they cleansed it,” Jackson claimed in the dramatic hearing. “They deleted information they didn’t want the police to have. They deleted information they didn’t want us to have.” “Why does she get to be the gatekeeper? She isn’t and she can’t be.” A summer night in 2016 The young man making the accusation -- ABC News isn't naming him because he's an alleged victim of sexual assault -- told police that he was working as a busboy at the Club Car bar and restaurant on Nantucket when Spacey came in the night of July 7, 2016, according to court records. The young man claims Spacey groped him at the Club Car after he told the actor he was 23 -- not 18 -- and the two drank eight to 10 drinks each together. The alleged victim told police he recorded a portion of the alleged groping in a Snapchat video he sent to his girlfriend at the time. Spacey pleaded not guilty in January to one count of indecent assault and battery, an allegation his attorneys have characterized in court papers as “patently false.” (MORE: Actor Kevin Spacey charged with indecent assault on teen in Massachusetts) Cape and Islands Assistant District Attorney Brian Glenny did not address in court on Monday the issues raised by Jackson about texts or other information allegedly being deleted from the phone before it was turned over to authorities, and a civil attorney for the accuser did not immediately respond to calls for comment about Jackson's claims. A spokeswoman for the district attorney's office also did not immediately respond to an ABC News request for comment. In court filings released late Monday, prosecutors deny that they withheld anything from the defense or falsely claimed they weren’t in possession of the man’s cell phone. Prosecutors said that they had already agreed to provide the defense a copy of the information they downloaded from the accuser’s phone. In the Monday court filings, prosecutors described Jackson's allegations that exculpatory texts were deleted from the phone by the accuser and his mother as "unsupported." "The Commonwealth should not have to even address these unsupported allegations as the Commonwealth has agreed to provide the forensic download" of the accuser's cell phone, prosecutors wrote in Monday's filings. "Help" Jackson cited an example of an allegedly partially-deleted series of text exchanges from the night and early morning of the alleged incident. “At 1:41 a.m. [on July 8, 2016] there was a text, according to the forensic report, that [used the alleged victim’s first name, that urged him] to “leave and go home,” Jackson said in court. In response, according to Jackson, the alleged victim texted back, “‘Should I, actually?’” Portions of subsequently-deleted text exchanges cited by Jackson turned up the words “picture” and “help," according to the attorney. Before "he handed the phone to police, he deleted the entire message except the word 'help'," Jackson contended. "Their extraction report only shows 'help.' That's the kind of cleansing [the accuser] and Heather were undertaking." Jackson went on to describe the allegedly newly-uncovered text threads as "big, bold, new news."
|
.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.