Sexual Assault Charge Against Kevin Spacey Is Dropped - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15019370
Julia Jacobs wrote:After the young man who had accused Mr. Spacey invoked the Fifth Amendment, the district attorney said the prosecution could not go forward.

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Prosecutors in Massachusetts on Wednesday dropped a sexual assault charge against the actor Kevin Spacey, bringing an abrupt close to one of the few criminal cases of the #MeToo era.

Mr. Spacey, 59, had been accused of fondling an 18-year-old man at a Nantucket restaurant three years ago. But in recent weeks, there had been signs that the case was in jeopardy. Last month, the accuser’s lawyer said that a smartphone being sought as evidence had disappeared, and this month, the accuser dropped a lawsuit against Mr. Spacey only six days after having filed it.

Problems for the prosecution came to a head last week when Mr. Spacey’s accuser invoked the Fifth Amendment after being warned that he could be charged with a felony if he had deleted phone evidence. When the young man refused to continue his testimony, a Nantucket District Court judge said the prosecution might no longer be viable.

In a court filing on Wednesday, Michael O’Keefe, the Cape and Islands district attorney, wrote that the office was dropping the prosecution “due to the unavailability of the complaining witness.”

Mr. O’Keefe’s office elaborated in a news release that the accuser and his family had met with prosecutors on Sunday to determine his willingness to cooperate through the rest of the case.

“The complaining witness was informed that if he chose to continue to invoke his Fifth Amendment right,” the district attorney’s office wrote, “the case would not be able to go forward.”

Once the accuser decided to keep invoking his right against self-incrimination, the office wrote, the only way to continue prosecuting Mr. Spacey would be to grant the accuser immunity from prosecution and force his testimony. But that would have ramifications, including damaging the accuser’s credibility.

“A grant of immunity compromises the witness to a degree which, in a case where the credibility of the witness is paramount, makes the further prosecution untenable,” the office wrote.

Mitchell Garabedian, the accuser’s lawyer, said in a statement on Wednesday that the man and his family “have shown an enormous amount of courage under difficult circumstances.” He declined to comment further.

The Nantucket case was one of a series of sexual misconduct allegations against Mr. Spacey that came to light in the early days of the #MeToo movement, which followed revelations about the behavior of the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Numerous powerful men have lost their jobs after people they harassed or assaulted felt emboldened to speak out; Mr. Spacey’s acting career came to a sudden halt, with “House of Cards” cutting him out of the final season and the film “All the Money in the World” replacing him with Christopher Plummer in the role of J. Paul Getty.

But the accusation out of Nantucket was the only one against Mr. Spacey that had led to criminal charges. Other than a coming trial against Mr. Weinstein in Manhattan involving two women and a charge of indecent assault and battery against the celebrity chef Mario Batali in Boston, few other #MeToo cases have been brought in the United States. In most instances, the incidents were either too old to prosecute or did not rise to the level of a criminal offense.

Mr. Spacey’s accuser had reported to the police that in July 2016, when he was 18 and working as a busboy at the Club Car restaurant in Nantucket, he had asked to be introduced to Mr. Spacey one night after his shift ended.

After he and Mr. Spacey had had several drinks, the young man said, they began to sing together at the piano. The accuser said that Mr. Spacey had been trying to get him to come home with him, and that while they were standing by the piano, Mr. Spacey had unzipped the young man’s pants and rubbed his penis for about three minutes, according to a police report.

When Mr. Spacey went to the bathroom, the young man told a woman at the bar that he thought Mr. Spacey was trying to rape him, and when she advised him to leave, he ran home, according to his account to the police.

Mr. Spacey was charged in December 2018 with one count of indecent assault and battery in the case. He pleaded not guilty, and his lawyer, Alan Jackson, argued that the encounter with Mr. Spacey was “consensual flirtation.” Mr. Jackson wrote in a court filing that the accuser “concocted and exaggerated elements of a story to impress his friends.” Mr. Jackson did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

During the criminal court proceedings, the defense focused its efforts on obtaining the smartphone that the young man used the night of the incident. Throughout the night, he had been texting his girlfriend updates on what he said was happening. At one point, according to court documents, he texted her that Mr. Spacey had grabbed his penis “like eight times.”

Mr. Jackson said records of that text conversation appeared to be incomplete, suggesting that the accuser had deleted messages that could prove Mr. Spacey’s innocence. A group chat involving the accuser and several friends also appeared to be incomplete and edited, Mr. Jackson wrote in court filings.

A Nantucket District Court judge granted the defense’s request to obtain the accuser’s physical smartphone so it could be examined. But shortly before the phone was supposed to be produced, the accuser’s lawyer said it was missing.

At the hearing about the missing phone last week, the young man and his parents denied that they had manipulated screenshots of text messages from the night of the incident before handing them over to police. But when Mr. Jackson told the accuser that he could be charged with a felony if he had deleted evidence, the young man invoked the Fifth Amendment.

The Nantucket case became public in fall 2017 after the accuser’s mother, Heather Unruh, a former television news anchor in Boston, disclosed her son’s account at a news conference and asked the unidentified woman who had told him to flee the Club Car to step forward. That news conference came soon after Mr. Spacey had been publicly accused of sexual misconduct for the first time. In a BuzzFeed article, the actor Anthony Rapp accused Mr. Spacey of having sexually assaulted him in 1986, when Mr. Rapp was 14. No criminal charges were filed.

Mr. Spacey, in a statement at the time, said he did not recall the encounter with Mr. Rapp, but that “if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.”

He also wrote that the accusation “encouraged me to address other things about my life,” and revealed then that he was gay. Many accused Mr. Spacey of using his coming out to deflect attention from Mr. Rapp’s accusation, and of providing fodder for the damaging conflation of homosexuality and pedophilia.

Around the same time as the Nantucket accusation was made public, the Old Vic theater in London said that 20 people had come forward with allegations of inappropriate behavior by Mr. Spacey from before and during his 11-year stint as the theater’s artistic director.

NY Times
#15019371
It only helps prove Spacey's innocence in this.

Even if we indulge the complaints, then I'm sexually assaulted every weekend that I go to nightclubs, whether in male or drag form.

I'm not going to court over it, oh come on! It's one of the reasons I go to gay nightclubs! I WANT to be felt up! And it perfectly obvious to everyone else that looks that it is consensual. No one MAKES me lie back in someone's lap so that they can put their hands up my dress, or down my zipper, to hand job me.

If the text messages were so incriminating against Spacey, WHY delete them? Logically because they weren't & the fellow (and mother) hoped to get him convicted on zero evidence.
#15019493
BigSteve wrote:I always enjoyed Spacey's acting.

Hopefully this nonsense will be put behind him and he can get back to making movies...


Sexual assaults against young men by a homosexual you call "nonsense"?
You talk like a homosexual. It's all just fine. Let us do anything we want. We're protected and if you disagree, you're a "bigot." And so go the lives of many thousands of innocent children, as the brainwashing continues, even in elementary schools.
#15019554
MrWonderful wrote:Sexual assaults against young men by a homosexual you call "nonsense"?
You talk like a homosexual. It's all just fine. Let us do anything we want. We're protected and if you disagree, you're a "bigot." And so go the lives of many thousands of innocent children, as the brainwashing continues, even in elementary schools.


He didn't assault the man. What he described was totally consensual. You can't force someone to sit/lie in your lap. THAT'S BS!
#15019692
MrWonderful wrote:Sexual assaults against young men by a homosexual you call "nonsense"?
You talk like a homosexual. It's all just fine. Let us do anything we want. We're protected and if you disagree, you're a "bigot." And so go the lives of many thousands of innocent children, as the brainwashing continues, even in elementary schools.


Admin Edit: Rule 2 Violation

The unsubstantiated charges of an alleged assault are nonsensical.

I suppose you're one of those types who believe that mere allegations are "proof" that something happened...
#15021026
BigSteve wrote:Admin Edit: Rule 2 Violation

The unsubstantiated charges of an alleged assault are nonsensical.

I suppose you're one of those types who believe that mere allegations are "proof" that something happened...


You are clearly "one of those types" who believes any allegation leveled at a Republican, but you have a very different standard for allegations leveled at homosexuals, Leftists, "feminists" (sic), etc.
#15021236
MrWonderful wrote:You are clearly "one of those types" who believes any allegation leveled at a Republican, but you have a very different standard for allegations leveled at homosexuals, Leftists, "feminists" (sic), etc.


You clearly aren't aware of what my political leanings are, as it's clear that you're woefully unaware of what I believe.

Go read through my litany of posts on PoFo, then come back and tell me that you still believe I defend leftists, feminists, or homosexuals. You'll die an old man before you'll be able to do that.

The fact of the matter is that I like Kevin Spacey as an actor. He's superb. If the allegations against him were proven true, that wouldn't make him any less of an actor. It would just make him a sick, demented person who's also a superb actor.

But the allegations have not been proven true. The alleged victim would not cooperate with prosecutors, so that only further suggests innocence on the part of Spacey.

I want to see him get back to making movies because he's a great actor who has been proven guilty of nothing...
#15021400
And the difference between a "good" actor and a "bad" one is what? Exactly?
Your personal preference? Sort of like "art" as slung on a canvas by Jackson Pollock? By Basquiat?
http://WhenCrapIsArt.blogspot.com

The "Best Movie" of last year was about a pretend water monster shaped very much like a human being, with the lead actress masterbating full frontal nudity, in her bathtub. It was about a sick character using very vulgar language and mannerisms. One moron said "When I was younger I should have brushed my teeth more and f***ed more. Ha, ha, ha, ha." That's the BEST from Hollywood? After half an hour of this stupidity, I demanded a refund, and received it. I never intend to make these filthy Leftists any richer than they already are, for dreck they so blithely pass off to suckers as "art".
#15021640
MrWonderful wrote:And the difference between a "good" actor and a "bad" one is what? Exactly?
Your personal preference? Sort of like "art" as slung on a canvas by Jackson Pollock? By Basquiat?
http://WhenCrapIsArt.blogspot.com



Um, "Green Book" won the Best Picture Oscar for 2018. I saw it; great flick.

And there was nothing remotely resembling anything that you're babbling about...
#15021975
MrWonderful wrote:The "Best Movie" of last year was about a pretend water monster shaped very much like a human being, with the lead actress masterbating full frontal nudity, in her bathtub.

Is this movie available on DVD yet? I'm, uh, asking for a friend. :)
#15023473
MrWonderful wrote:Try The Shape of Water, genius. It's been so long since I've been to a Hollywood crap film I dropped a year or two.


You said it won last year.

Last year was 2018.

"Green Book" won the Best Picture Oscar for 2018.

You're wrong.

You just can't bring yourself to admit it, "genius"...
#15023519
MrWonderful wrote:Was there a water monster in Green Book? Obviously not. Anyone with common sense would understand. You're a Leftist. Don't try your pretense of intellectualism on me. It doesn't work. Nor will I bother reading much less responding to anything else you have to print.


Here's what you said on July 25, 2019:

The "Best Movie" of last year was about a pretend water monster shaped very much like a human being, with the lead actress masterbating full frontal nudity, in her bathtub.


"Last year" was 2018. The movie that won "Best Movie" for 2018 was not "The Shape Of Water". It was "Green Book".

You're wrong. You just can't admit it...
#15024476
What a weird thread.

Certainly I wished there was no substance to the complaints against Spacey, since I too enjoy his acting a lot, as well as his choices for movie projects, and wished these claims are false.

However there are many different ones over the years, including from the time before he was famous, so unfortunately that theory is rather unlikely.

And I'm sorry, but just because somebody is a great artist, or great at anything, shouldnt give them the freedom to commit crimes. That would be very unfair, and destructive towards society.

And I have to say I find the case of Spacey far less disappointing then when they put Winona Ryder away for theft. Spacey really seems guilty.

Ryder on the other hand simply suffered from cleptomania. She could have easily afforded the items she stole. Her actions have simply been irrational. Thus she should have received treatment by doctors, not prison time, and thats what would have happened in Europe to her. The dumb US system robbed us of probably a lot of great movies with one of the best actresses of our time simply because they have no rational handling of psychological sicknesses. I'm still super, super annoyed about what happened to Ryder.

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