Kevin Spacey must pay $38.75 million to the production company that owned the house he allegedly tried to sexually assault, according to a decision made on Thursday by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge.
Just after midnight on Oct. 31, 2016, Spacey was accused of attacking Star Trek actor Anthony Rapp when he was only 14 years old. The actor confirmed a report published by BuzzFeed on Oct. 29 that he was speaking out about the assault for the first time. Rapp claims that the actor and then-18-year-old Spacey — who is credited as David M. Penny on the set of the Spacey-produced Netflix drama House of Cards — made sexual advances towards him while Rapp was staying at Spacey’s apartment.
Since Rapp’s allegation, other alleged victims have come forward to accuse Spacey of sexual assault.
Rapp was joined by several other alleged victims on the stand during the trial and who told the court about their alleged inappropriate encounters with Spacey. One man said that he had known Spacey since he was 7 years old and also alleged that he was assaulted during a 1986 incident when Spacey was a 13-year-old teen. A woman who claimed to have received sexually explicit text messages from Spacey told the court that she met him when she was 16 and that he attempted to pick her up while she was drunk at a party in 2008. Both women testified to the fact that the texts were sent to the production company, Billionaire Boys Club, that owned the multi-million dollar Los Angeles apartment Spacey is accused of assaulting Rapp.
Billionaire Boys Club was founded by the 50-year-old film producer, Dana Brunetti, and the 48-year-old music executive, Roy Price. According to the Los Angeles Times, both Brunetti and Price both testified that they were not aware of Spacey’s history of allegedly assaulting people before the 2013 production of Billionaire Boys Club was shot. In court documents, the production company claimed that they were never served with a subpoena to find out if Spacey was working there at the time of the alleged assault.
Spacey’s legal team called witnesses and the actress Heather Unruh, the mother of the 13-year-old boy who was with Spacey when he is alleged to have assaulted Rapp, but the actress refuted the allegations made by Spacey, who she claimed tried to seduce her son.
The actor’s attorneys argued that he was not responsible for what allegedly happened to Rapp and that the case could not be proved without the complainant’s testimony.
Spacey issued a statement and apologized for “what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior” when Rapp came forward.
“I honestly do not remember the encounter, it would have been over 30 years ago,” Spacey said. “But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years.”
Since the accusation, Spacey has been left without a job.
Read the full story at New York Magazine.
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