Anthony Rapp speaks out after Kevin Spacey verdict, pledges to “keep on advocating”
"Bringing this lawsuit was always about shining a light," Anthony Rapp shared after his defeat in a $40 million lawsuit brought against Kevin Spacey
Aux News Kevin Spacey
Actor Anthony Rapp has shared a statement in the wake of losing a $40 million sexual misconduct lawsuit he filed against Kevin Spacey. In the suit, Rapp alleged that Spacey sexually assaulted him in 1986, when Rapp was just 14. After 90 minutes of deliberation, the jury returned with their verdict and found Spacey “not liable” for damages related to his charges.
Addressing the verdict in the Manhattan courtroom where it was handed down, Rapp’s attorney Richard Steigman said, per Deadline: “The jury spoke. Anthony told his truth. We respect the jury’s verdict, but it doesn’t change his truth.”
In Rapp’s own statement, he emphasizes his gratitude for the opportunity to bring his case to trial, and thanks the jurors for taking their time to serve.
“Bringing this lawsuit was always about shining a light, as part of the larger movement to stand up against all forms of sexual violence,” Rapp writes.
Rapp was the first to publicly accuse Spacey of sexual misconduct, but has by no means stood alone. Spacey’s New York trial may be concluding, but the two-time Oscar winner still faces five separate charges in the U.K.: four counts of sexual assault from three different men dating back to 2005, and one count of “causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.”
Spacey is pleading not guilty to all five charges. A formal trial for his U.K. case will begin next summer.
Read Rapp’s statement, shared across his social media, in full below:
I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to have my case heard before a jury, and I thank the members of the jury for their service.
Bringing this lawsuit was always about shining a light, as part of the larger movement to stand up against all forms of sexual violence.
I pledge to keep on advocating for efforts to ensure that we can live and work in a world that is free from sexual violence of any kind. I sincerely hope that survivors continue to tell their stories and fight for accountability.
62 Comments
Kevin Can F**k himselfand that’s all I have to say about that
Might be his only option now.
Did he ever stop?
Its a shame that so few will get this GlenGarry reference. Well done and one of my all time favorite films.
$40M? He might have won if he asked for $40K. But probably not.
Agreed. I was thinking $40M was quite a bit, but that definitely helped to grab attention and “shine a light” on this kind of behavior.
Guess that’s what “his truth” is worth.
Winning would have shined a brighter light. Going for something reasonable would have increased odds. Dramatically.
I don’t think that’s how lawsuits work.
The behavior of destroying someone’s career with accusations of an alleged crime for which the single bit of evidence provided was instantly deemed unreliable by a jury?
Yeah, but $40k for someone worth somewhere between $30M – 100M is chump change. Kevin Spacey would have gladly settled that sum out of court. $40M isn’t actually unreasonable given the charges and the assets of the person being charged.
I’ve always heard that the amount requested doesn’t really matter. Ultimately it’s up to the jury to determine liability and the value of that liability. Although maybe the jury inferred ulterior motives based on the high value requested? I dunno.
The reporting that I heard said that Rapp’s testimony had several factual holes. Understandable after all these years, but it does lead to enough doubt for the jury to pass.
What about the fact that Kevin Spacey literally confessed to being a sexual predator
Spacey was found not guilty, that’s very different than being found guilty and the judge awarding a different amount than what was being requested. The amount should have made no difference.
That’s not how anything works. Whatever the monetary damages a plaintiff a brings forth has no bearing on a civil trial. It’s not even entered to the jury as a consideration. A civil trial will have two phases, one to decide liability, then if found, a second deliberation to decide damages, based on the laws and limitations of whatever state statute applies.
Thanks for this. The idea that the compensation amount can influence a jury’s decision tells you how much people have no idea how the judicial system works. The jury is there to evaluate evidence and testimony, and deliberate upon that whether they find the defendant guilty or not. The amount the defendant will have to pay isn’t their concern, and it would be deeply worrying if that was in fact taken into consideration by the jury.
A punishment the guilty can afford to pay off is not really a punishment
I give Rapp credit for being incredibly generous to the jury. It would have been easy to say something even along the lines of “I respect their decision, even if I was disappointed” and he took an extremely high road. Kudos to him.
Kudos to Rapp, who was unable to provide any evidence whatsoever that his claim – which destroyed another man’s life – had the slightest basis in fact? Kudos to Rapp, whose testimony – the only evidence of Spacey’s alleged crime – was deemed unreliable by psychologists?Kudos? Really?Defendants in sexual assault causes deserve to be heard. They don’t deserve admiration for destroying other people’s lives with claims of which there is absolutely no proof.
Two words: Duke lacrosse.
I’m sure he figured this would be the outcome. He knows he doesn’t have any evidence and that the crime happened 36 years ago. But he said his peace and inspired others who may have a stronger case to come foward.
“Anthony told his truth.”
When you say “his truth”, you undercut the fact that it is *THE* truth.
“His truth” means absolutely nothing.
Has there been any info on why the jury ruled that way? Usually we get post trial interview that shed some light.
I haven’t seen any jury interviews. There’s a piece on the verdict on a site called Deadline.com that purports to briefly summarize the closing arguments. It looks like Rapp was inconsistent in some of the details about the incident. However, I think it’s probably the battery of neuropsychological tests Rapp’s psychologist administered that hurt his case the most. The tests are designed to establish the presence of PTSD and/or other trauma in the subject. Rapp’s results were said to be “off the charts” as regards his self-reported symptoms. However, the battery of tests always includes some tests designed to weed out malingerers or people who are simply not being truthful without them knowing it. The results of these tests apparently weren’t good for him. Where the jury is considering whether the plaintiff proved his case by a preponderance of the evidence (50% plus a smidge) and there’s evidence that the plaintiff wasn’t a reliable witness it’s tough to get a jury to find that plaintiff met his burden of proof.
Yeah, I was gonna say, it’s probably not that they jury doesn’t believe Rapp…but it’s hard to prove in a court of law, beyond a reasonable doubt, that something, based purely on witness testimony, happened over 30 years ago.
In a civil trial you don’t have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt which is the standard for criminal cases. In this case it was “preponderance of the evidence” a much lower standard.
I haven’t read anything since the ruling from the jury about their decision, but Spacey’s team was able to establish two very strong arguments that may have been influential. First was that Rapp’s story described a one bedroom apartment while Spacey had a studio at the time. Second Rapp said his decision to speak out was inspired by Lupita Nyong’o calling out her abuser, when it turns out when it turns out his announcement predated hers.Going in to it this was a decades old he said he said which makes it tough to prove. Two verifiable inaccuracies in his story, the profit motive of a multimillion dollar payout, and the exclusion of any mentioning of other allegations against Spacey all came together to make a pretty strong defense case.I believe Rapp but I probably would have voted the same way.
You believe the victim but side with the rapist? Does that set off any alarm bells in your tiny brain?
What rape?
You clearly don’t understand the concept of reasonable doubt.
Clearly you don’t understand the concept that no one gives a fuck what you incel losers think about how innocent your favorite rapist is.
They’d be legally required to. It’s not the AV Club comment section, in an actual trial a juror’s supposed to weigh up the evidence and determine whether it meets the burden of proof regardless of their personal sympathies (or be removed / recuse themselves if they feel that their personal sympathies would prevent them from doing so). If the evidence strongly goes against the plaintiff’s case, the jury can’t then go “Oh well, the defendant’s probably a rapist regardless.”
As a juror, you can’t have a shadow of a doubt. Even if you believe it happened, if you have any doubts, you’re not supposed to vote guilty. This is drilled into jurors during duty.
Have you served on a jury? Because let me tell you, the burden of proof is definitely weighted that, versus one extreme or the other, it’s better to let a potentially guilty person go free than a potentially innocent man be punished. The only way to sort out whether a given person is one or the other is to rely on the burden of proof.This case didn’t provide that. So even though, personally, a person can believe the victim and think the defendant guilty, if the proof isn’t enough to convict, then the law can’t be bent to allow a conviction.Letting a guilty person go free is better than an innocent be convicted, because if a guilty person is truly guilty, they’ll be back again in court shortly (which Spacey will be). An innocent won’t have an easy time fight a wrongful conviction, however.
That isn’t what he said.
Imagine not understanding how juries work.
From the reports I’ve read, I can imagine John Barrowman’s testimony carried a lot of weight. If I had been on the jury, I believe it would have swayed me.
This is a gossip/entertainment site; it has the same access to the facts that you do. It summarizes the writing of actual journalists (usually badly), and copies press releases (sometimes verbatim). Nothing published here should ever be taken seriously or regarded as reliably informative. Ironically, the purpose of this trial was always to gain the attention of gossip/entertainment sites.But to answer your question… There was never any chance of a guilty verdict. Not only did Rapp bring no evidence beyond his own testimony (that he was touched by an adult while a minor), psychological testing deemed his testimony unreliable.
It was a weak case.
I’m saying this with peace ‘n love, in a totally non-victim-blaming way:
Shut up, kid.
You shut the fuck up.
You are slipping. I commented yesterday about David Bowie and no one called me ‘rape apologist’. Try to get your shit together.
Shut the fuck up stupid. You are boring.
No you are.
The fuck?
Speaking of victim blaming, am I am mistaken but why was a 14 year old at an adults party or gathering with no parent? I thought I read he was there alone. I could be wrong. I can’t speak on anyone else but my parents wouldn’t let me go to something like this with no other children being there or they not being there. It shouldn’t have happened regardless, but this is why parenting comes in not to put your kids in situations like this.
Believe it or not, not everything needs your input.
I know, I’m not Olivia Wilde.
You realize he’s 50 now, right?
Does he?
Who?I’m saying that Anthony Rapp is 50, he was a teenager when it happened in the 80s but he’s not a kid now.
He’s not a kid, just a liar.
yeah I heard.
This dumb unfunny troll just wanted to defend a rapist. It’s his favorite thing to do because he is human garbage.
The Clintons rapist/murderer pal gets away with it. Why do the Clintons hang out with so many rapists and pedophiles? Why doesn’t the government do anything about it? Are we ever going to see arrests of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients? Why isn’t Trump, Clinton, Bill Gates, Prince Andrew, Elon Musk, Bill Richardson, Les Wexner, and the rest all in prison?
What gives me a lot of pause after I read about it was how Rapp’s accusation against Spacey is nearly identical to a scene in play he was performing in at the time. The scene had Ed Harris drunkenly mistake his son played by Rapp for someone else, climb on top of him on a mattress, and make a sexual advance. That coincidence is just insane to me. I can really only think of two options: either Spacey used knowledge of that scene to prey on Rapp, or Rapp has confused a memory for the play with Spacey. Like, what if Rapp was at Spacey’s apartment, in his bedroom, and fell asleep on the mattress? By Rapp’s own account he secluded himself to the bedroom and stayed very late. The party’s over, Spacey is going to bed, and he tries to wake the kid up. That’s when the kid, confused, thinks he’s in the aforementioned scene but instead of Ed Harris it’s Kevin Spacey. So the kid proceeds in his life with a real belief that the fake scene he acted in actually happened to him.I’m aware this is an “out-there” idea, but I am struggling to rationalize this coincidence.
One thing that was brought to light that got my attention was the fact that Anthony Rapp was in a play that year called “Precious Sons” where the character of his father (Ed Harris) drunkenly mistakes Rapp’s character for his wife and picks him up, puts him on a bed and lays on top of him. Pretty much the same as the allegation against Kevin Spacey. Maybe playing this character night after night at such a young age did something to his psyche and caused him to get his wires crossed.
There is only the truth. There is not “his truth” or “your truth” or “my truth”
Hooray! The Spaceman is not a kiddie diddler.
The BS “not guilty” mistake should not become a gag order. If double jeopardy protects the unconvicted but still guilty sexual abuser, then it should also protect Rapp from false claims of slander or libel when repeating his accusations.
Maybe I’m not clear on the details after all of these years, but I was under the impression that Spacey, in this case, had merely tried to seduce him. In the end, Spacey—who was drunk at the time—merely stepped aside and let him go. He had carried the boy to the bedroom but nothing really happened. Spacey is a dick. That seems to be the consensus; a snobby prick. But I remember thinking when the opportunists came out of the woodwork that this was taking everything far too much. In another incident, Spacey had attempted sex with an 18-year-old boy, whom, I think worked in a restaurant. Spacey was clearly boorish, but for this young man to claim trauma is really embarrassing. I was hitchhiking when I was 18, and a gay man picked me up. He reached over and rubbed my crotch through my jeans, attempting to seduce me. I resisted and he accepted that, and when he dropped me off, I simply got out of the car. For the most part, I—who had been very shy in those days—was shocked that someone could be so forward with a complete stranger. But was I traumatized by it? Hell, no.Clearly Rapp wasn’t traumatized either. His career went forward without a glitch. And it seems to me that this lawsuit came much later than his initial disclosure. When he first brought it up, he seemed to me that Rapp was just mentioning it, as a means of discussing sexual harassment in the Hollywood environment. After Spacey’s life unraveled, Rapp, too seized upon the opportunity, and decided the incident was multi-million-dollar lawsuit worthy.