By Aaron Miller-
Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey said he was ‘humbled’ as a jury found him not guilty of sexual assault .
The Oscar winner broke down in tears in court as he was found not guilty of sexual offences against four men .
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The Hollywood star, 64, had said in advance of this much publicised case that he would be cleared, adding that there were many people waiting to hire him once he won the case.
Spacey’s acquittal leaves the door for a return to acting that looked incredibly unlikely when he was first accused during the original wave of #MeToo allegations.
Accused as a sexual bully who made a habit of groping men, Spacey was said to have a “trademark” of grabbing men by the crotch without warning.
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In one instance Spacey, was accused of performing a sex act on a young actor who had come to him for help with his career.
The double Oscar-winning star told the trial in London that he had been falsely accused by men who were either out for money or confused about their own sexuality.
Spacey told the court he had engaged in “casual indiscriminate sexual encounters”, but insisted having “promiscuous” one-night stands “doesn’t make me a bad person”.
In one of the incidents, Spacey admitted touching a man’s crotch ,but insisted it was a “clumsy pass” after misreading the signals, rather than a sexual assault.
At the end of a four-week trial, a jury of nine men and three women deliberated for two and a half days before finding Spacey not guilty of seven counts of sexual assault, one charge of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent, and one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.
He embraced his legal team and thanked the court usher before finally leaving the courtroom.
On the steps of the courthouse in central London, Spacey gave a short statement to the assembled members of the media.
“I imagine many of you can understand there’s a lot for me to process after what’s just happened today”, he said.
“But I would like to say that I’m enormously grateful to the jury for having taken the time to examine all the evidence and all of the facts carefully before they reached their decision.
“And I am humbled by the outcome today.”
Spacey also thanked the court staff, security guards, and his legal team, before making his way through a scrum of photographers to his waiting car.
Spacey’s acquittal could pave the way for a return to acting that looked incredibly unlikely when he was first accused during the original wave of #MeToo allegations.
In October 2017, actor Anthony Rapp went public with a claim that Spacey had climbed on top of him and made a sexual advance during a Broadway after-party in 1986, when he was just 14.
The story was published in the same month as rape allegations against disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein, and Spacey responded by coming out as gay, saying he does not remember the incident, and apologising to Rapp.
“If I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behaviour”, he wrote.
However, when sued by Rapp, Spacey fought the claim and emerged victorious from a New York civil trial last October.
Spacey told the court his “world exploded” when first accused, as he was dropped from the TV show House of Cards and his Oscar-tipped part in All the Money in the World was axed.
Misconduct Allegations
Spacey was ordered by a court in 2021 to pay £23.2m to the studio behind House of Cards as a result of the misconduct allegations being made against him, including that he had created a “toxic” work environment, made crude comments, and allegedly touched young staffers without their consent.
A civil action involving an alleged grope of a teenager at a Massachusetts bar in 2016 was ultimately dropped, while another damages claim ended when the alleged victim, a massage therapist in Malibu, California, died.
Wednesday’s not guilty verdicts in London do not bring an end to Spacey’s legal troubles, as he is already being sued in the civil courts by two of his accusers from the criminal case. The trial centred on claims that Spacey had sexually assaulted three men in London and a fourth in the Cotswolds between 2001 and 2013.
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