What’s Happening at Kevin Spacey’s Sexual-Misconduct Trial?

What’s Happening at Kevin Spacey’s Sexual-Misconduct Trial?,Kevin Spacey is back on trial — in court facing multiple allegations of sexual misconduct spanning a decade he’d spent living in London.

What’s Happening at Kevin Spacey’s Sexual-Misconduct Trial?

For the second time in less than a year, Kevin Spacey is facing a jury over sexual-misconduct allegations with a trial in his U.K. criminal case starting in earnest on Friday, June 30. The fallen American Beauty star, who was cleared in a civil sexual-misconduct case in October 2022, is on trial in London on sexual-assault charges involving four men. During opening arguments on the first day of his trial, the prosecution claimed that Spacey “delights in making others feel powerless and uncomfortable,” according to the New York Times.

The prosecutor, Christine Agnew, told jurors that Spacey is “a man who sexually assaults other men. A man who does not respect personal boundaries or space. A man who, it would seem, delights in making others feel powerless and uncomfortable — a sexual bully,” The Guardian reported. “His preferred method of assault is, it appears, to grab aggressively other men in the crotch. On one occasion, things went further than that.” Spacey has denied the allegations. Here is what we know about the trial so far.

Which charges does Kevin Spacey face in London?

Spacey faces 12 counts. They include seven sexual-assault counts and three indecent-assault counts. He faces one count each of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent and causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent, per The Guardian. The counts relate to four men for alleged incidents between 2001 and 2013. Spacey lived in London when he worked as artistic director of the famed Old Vic Theatre from 2003 to 2015.

So what are the specific allegations against Spacey?

In a 90-minute opening argument, the prosecution laid out accusers’ claims against Spacey. One accuser claimed that before the alleged assaults unfolded, Spacey would speak “openly about his sexuality,” making him uncomfortable. As time went on, the accuser said, Spacey started to touch him inappropriately, and these encounters became “more intense.” There were eventually times that Spacey would grab and grope in an aggressive way, the BBC reported. The prosecution claimed that Spacey derived a “sexual thrill out of this type of sexual aggression.”

The second accuser told authorities that Spacey had “simply laughed” when he’d pushed the actor away at a 2005 work function after Spacey allegedly grabbed him so strongly that “it was painful,” according to the BBC.

The third accuser said he first encountered Spacey at the Old Vic and asked him for mentorship. Once, after drinking at a bar, they went back to Spacey’s home. The accuser said that he woke up and found Spacey engaging in a sex act on him, the prosecution reportedly stated.

Finally, the fourth accuser said he’d met Spacey at a pub in 2013. The man, who worked at the pub, ran into him later that evening at another bar, where he’d had told Spacey he was headed. At this bar, the man alleges, Spacey touched the man’s leg over and over. When a group returned to Spacey’s home that evening, the actor allegedly told the man to “be cool” when Spacey tried to kiss his neck. Then, when Spacey and the man were by themselves in a room, Spacey allegedly grabbed this man’s crotch, BBC reported the prosecution as saying.

Did Spacey’s lawyer say anything in court?

Yes. In what the BBC described as a “short” opening statement, defense lawyer Patrick Gibbs said the accusations were from a “long time ago” and “reimagined with a sinister spin,” further describing the claims as “made up or twisted.” According to the BBC, Gibbs questioned the accusers’ motives and said, “You will hear many damned lies.”

Does this have anything to do with Spacey’s New York trial in fall 2022?

No. Spacey’s sexual-misconduct trial in Manhattan federal court was a civil proceeding involving actor Anthony Rapp’s allegations against Spacey. Rapp had claimed that Spacey made an aggressive, unwanted sexual advance in 1986, when Rapp was only 14. (Spacey would have been about 26 at that time.) Rapp alleged that he’d met Spacey when the then-teen was acting in the Broadway play Precious Sons. Rapp claimed that he went to Spacey’s apartment for a party, during which Spacey allegedly climbed on top of him. “I was frozen. I was pinned underneath him,” Rapp told jurors. “I didn’t really know what to do.” Rapp lost his case. The jury took less than an hour to find Spacey not liable.

Didn’t things get really weird at the Rapp trial?

Indeed. Within a few minutes of Spacey’s testimony, he gave an Oscar-worthy performance describing a childhood rife with trauma. “I grew up in a very complicated family dynamic,” Spacey told jurors. “My father was unemployed a great deal at the time, so therefore he was home a lot of the time … My father was a white supremacist and a neo-Nazi.” (Spacey’s lawyer also got COVID-19.)

How has Spacey been behaving lately?

Spacey doesn’t appear to be super-worried. When he arrived at court on June 28, he seemed in good spirits and wished people “good morning,” the Independent reported. The Guardian said that he “smiled” when he got to court on Friday. And, according to Sky News, Spacey “smiled” when court wrapped after opening statements and purportedly “shared a joke with the court clerk who led him from the room.” This isn’t the first time Spacey’s behavior has raised eyebrows following misconduct allegations. Recall the bizarre “Let Me Be Frank” video and his mental-health-themed Christmas address.