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The jury’s decision marks a difficult turning point in the #Metoo movement.
This week, as a jury concluded actor Kevin Spacey was not guilty of molesting Anthony Rapp – an assault that Mr Rapp alleges took place when he was just 14 – Spacey dropped his head in relief.
Hugging lawyers and others, Spacey said he was ‘deeply grateful’ for the court’s decision.
The lawsuit had been based on Anthony Rapp’s claims that Spacey sexually molested him as a child, while the two were both acting on Broadway in the 1980s. Mr Rapp was filing for $40m (£36m) in damages.
A verdict of not guilty came after just one hour of deliberation. Anthony Rapp went public with the allegations of sexual assault five years ago.
In 2017, he told Buzzfeed news that Mr Spacey – who was 27 at the time – had placed a then-14-year-old Rapp down onto a bed at his Manhattan apartment, and made sexual advances without Rapp’s consent.
The claims were made public at the height of the #MeToo movement. By finding Spacey not-guilty after just 60 minutes, this case has deferred its momentum. For many, the verdict comes as a shock.
Terri Austin, a co-host on the Law & Crime Network, said she was a surprised ‘at how quickly the jury came back with that verdict’.
Austin also argued that one reason the jury chose not to believe Rapp could have been because the alleged incident ‘happened so long ago’.
‘Though [the jury] should not be considering that [time had elapsed since the incident] because there are many reasons people don’t come out [at the time of an assault]’ Austin felt the $40m rate of damages could be seen as ‘astronomical’ given the date of the incident.
‘I just hope they came to the right conclusion’, Austin told her co-hosts.
Following the verdict, Rapp shared that he had brought the case for the #MeToo movement, and would continue to fight for these causes – be it for himself or others.
While Spacey’s lawyers claimed that Rapp’s story was entirely fabricated, and he was ‘getting more attention in this trial than he [had] in his entire acting life’, Spacey has faced multiple allegations of sexual misconduct in the past few years.
Netflix dropped the actor from hit series ‘House of Cards’ in 2017, and was ordered to pay $31m in damages to the show’s producers.
