Another jury-led trial finds (alleged) sexual abuser not guilty

October 21, 2022 11:02 AM

Variety: Jury sides with Kevin Spacey in Anthony Rapp's lawsuit for 'sexual battery' when he was 14 - Spacey's team argues the allegations are driven by career jealousy plus other factual inconsistencies; jury agrees. In any case: Even though Spacey scored a victory against Rapp, he still faces legal challenges. He has been ordered to pay MRC, the producer of “House of Cards,” $31 million in damages after the political thriller had its episode-order cut in the wake of abuse allegations against the star. Spacey also faces charges in the U.K. for sexually assaulting three men when he was living in London as the artistic director of the Old Vic theater. He has pled not guilty.
posted by cendawanita (32 comments total)

Career jealousy?
posted by mittens at 11:09 AM on October 21, 2022 [6 favorites]

This tweet is only an example of various comments making the same point: A judge in a separate case for Kevin Spacey found him guilty of sexual harassment and penalized him $31M. Today, a jury trial ruled Kevin Spacey is not liable for battery for sexually assaulting a 14 year old. This is exactly why abusive men rely on jury trials to absolve them.

We saw this as well with Depp and what he did to Amber Heard in the public eye. Incidentally, the same rough gaggle of people who defended him online also has been defending Spacey despite (the obvious hypocritical) fact that they claimed they were standing for male victims of sexual violence in the Depp-Heard (USA) case.
posted by cendawanita at 11:10 AM on October 21, 2022 [36 favorites]

They also argued that Rapp was upset that Spacey was not openly gay and that he was consumed with jealousy over the actor’s superior Hollywood career.
posted by cendawanita at 11:10 AM on October 21, 2022

Kevin Spacey found not liable in sex abuse suit brought by Anthony Rapp - The jury of five men and six women deliberated for just under 90 minutes Thursday afternoon. Rapp appeared stoic as the verdict was read, and his lawyers seemed dejected as they left the courthouse in downtown Manhattan.

[...] Rapp alleged that Spacey climbed on top of him at a party in New York City in 1986, when Rapp was 14 and Spacey was 26. Rapp, best known for his role in the musical “Rent,” testified that the alleged encounter was “the most traumatic single event” of his life.

Spacey flatly denied Rapp’s allegations, saying under oath that “they are not true.” His lawyers argued that Rapp “created a story” in large part because he was jealous of their client’s success in the entertainment industry.
posted by cendawanita at 11:15 AM on October 21, 2022

How about we just get Tig Notaro to re-do all of Spacey's iconic performances in greenscreen like she did in Army of the Dead when they edited out Chris D'Elia?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:27 AM on October 21, 2022 [27 favorites]

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the jury he didn't exist.
posted by chavenet at 11:54 AM on October 21, 2022 [27 favorites]

We saw this as well with Depp

This is not the same thing at all. This is about a house party in 1986. Honestly, how much evidence could possibly remain? No wonder the jury didn't take long, there isn't much to consider. The Depp case was much more recent and had evidence for days and days.
posted by adept256 at 11:56 AM on October 21, 2022 [14 favorites]

Years ago at a medium sized con, I was hanging by myself in a quiet room with a few other scattered folks taking breathers, organizing my artist’s alley loot, and I ended up having a nice conversation about nothing much with this sweet funny guy for a little while before he got a notification beep. He said he had to run before he was late to a panel, and after our goodbyes another person in the room sidled over and was like “uh, you did know that was Anthony Rapp, right? His Q&A is in five minutes.”

My theater nerd friend was devastated when I told her. I’m just glad I had a mid-con conversation with a stranger that didn’t go horribly sideways, and that he had a few minutes of not being recognized in the middle of con guest stress.

That’s my mediocre Anthony Rapp story. He had a calm, engaging, respectful energy, and accusations of him making things up or exaggerating always makes me think back to that. I hope he is doing as well as can be expected.
posted by Mizu at 12:16 PM on October 21, 2022 [66 favorites]

When you're most often recognized for something awful that happened almost 30 years ago, he might have been looking for someone wouldn't do that.
posted by adept256 at 12:24 PM on October 21, 2022

If this leads to a Kevin Spacey career renaissance, I'm going to flip my shit. Ugh. My sympathies to Rapp.
posted by Kitteh at 12:30 PM on October 21, 2022 [22 favorites]

I was a film studies student in the early 2000's and occasionally alumni of our rinky dink program who had gone to Hollywood would send back advice to our professors to pass along. Circa 2004 or 2005 a student (I think he was working as a waiter?) reported to our professor that Spacey had assaulted (or attempted to assault?) him at an event. So, our professor advised us to never be alone with Kevin Spacey. I regret we laughed about it at the time.
posted by Tesseractive at 12:43 PM on October 21, 2022 [28 favorites]

Having served on juries, I am pretty appalled at the way many outlets are reporting this, and I'm really curious whether the jurors would consider these reports to be accurate.

"A New York jury has sided with Kevin Spacey in a $40 million civil lawsuit" may be utterly false. "Anthony Rapp Loses $40 Million Sexual Battery Lawsuit " - now that's accurate and true.

It's possible the jurors doubted Rapp and believed Spacey - but it's also possible they believed Rapp, doubted Spacey, and believed that Spacey had acted inappropriately ... but not that the case reached the specific burden of proof for the lawsuit and the law.

It's not at all unheard of for jurors to feel their hands are tied by the rigidness of the justice system - or to be unhappy about evidence that was withheld from them, that they found out about after the trial.

I'm deeply dismayed by the verdict, but I'm glad Rapp chose to bring the suit, and as he said, "Bringing this lawsuit was always about shining a light, as part of the larger movement to stand up against all forms of sexual violence." The suit failed, but he has succeeded, by making the world more aware of the kinds of predatory and coercive behavior that young people continue to face today.
posted by kristi at 12:44 PM on October 21, 2022 [74 favorites]

If this leads to a Kevin Spacey career renaissance, I'm going to flip my shit.

I've said before that I've got a stand-in placeholder name for miscreants like him on my movie blog; I haven't had to write about any of his films yet, but in a year or so I'll probably have to start writing about another similarly nefarious dude.

If there's anyone who has that face-merge software that can help do high-quality merges of 4 or 5 people's photos, can you memail me? It may be time to introduce "Sid Meniscus" to the world so I don't have to dirty my mouth with this guy's actual name any more.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:47 PM on October 21, 2022 [8 favorites]

> If this leads to a Kevin Spacey career renaissance, I'm going to flip my shit. Ugh. My sympathies to Rapp.

Well, I hear the PM slot opened up over in the UK, and I'm sure the Tories would be very happy with an Urquhart/Underwood back in charge.
posted by Fiberoptic Zebroid and The Hypnagogic Jerks at 12:48 PM on October 21, 2022 [5 favorites]

If this leads to a Kevin Spacey career renaissance, I'm going to flip my shit.

If the Peter Five Eight trailer is anything to go by, you've got very little to fret about.
posted by chavenet at 12:56 PM on October 21, 2022 [5 favorites]

I am pretty appalled at the way many outlets are reporting this

I'm pretty appalled by the way this thread is presenting and discussing this, especially that comment above quoting a tweet that said "This is exactly why abusive men rely on jury trials to absolve them."

Contrary to that tweet, a judge did not find Spacey "guilty of sexual harassment and penalized him $31M". The judge confirmed an arbitration award given to the production company behind House of Cards for Spacey's breach of contract and other causes relating to Spacey's being fired in 2017 after a number of allegations of sexual harassment and abuse emerged from the production staff.

But upholding a finding based on numerous contemporaneous reports that had been vetted and found credible by multiple entities is not the same as a case regarding allegations of an incident of assault occurring 35 years ago with little to no corroborating evidence of any kind.

This is not to say that Rapp is lying or not but that the Rapp case was very different and far, far more difficult and, as kristi notes above, there are any number of reasons why a jury wouldn't vote for the plaintiff in such a case. This "jury trials are the salvation of abusers" narrative helps no one and misunderstands what's even going on.
posted by star gentle uterus at 1:20 PM on October 21, 2022 [37 favorites]

If there's anyone who has that face-merge software that can help do high-quality merges of 4 or 5 people's photos, can you memail me? It may be time to introduce "Sid Meniscus" to the world so I don't have to dirty my mouth with this guy's actual name any more.

Perhaps even better, This Person Does Not Exist (previously) can generate an image of an entirely fictional person. Perhaps it might be a solution for you.
posted by Gelatin at 1:21 PM on October 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

Perhaps even better, This Person Does Not Exist (previously) can generate an image of an entirely fictional person.

Nah, I sorta want to hint at the various dudes so people sorta-kinda know who I'm talking about even though I don't mention them by name. (Also, it's my way of doing a J'accuse on these dudes; if I've Meniscus'ed you, that ain't good.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:33 PM on October 21, 2022 [2 favorites]

I hope Mr. Rapp & all survivors of abuse remember that the court case only determines if society can make them pay or not, it's not the final arbiter of the truth of what happened, that person is you. Sometimes we just can't make society reimburse the damage.
posted by bleep at 1:42 PM on October 21, 2022 [10 favorites]

I hope this was only due to a lack of evidence (I admit I don't know what evidence could be submitted beyond personal testimony at this point), but Spacey's "I shouldn't have apologized" does make me want to barf.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:48 PM on October 21, 2022 [5 favorites]

I don't have any insight into the allegations against him (although there sure are a lot), but his public persona since this stuff has started coming out has been really chilling.
posted by grobstein at 1:52 PM on October 21, 2022 [2 favorites]

I am so fucking angry about this. Anthony Rapp deserves justice.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:10 PM on October 21, 2022 [16 favorites]

I mean, isn't this a civil trial? There isn't the same standard of proof in a civil trial compared to a criminal one.
posted by Merus at 3:29 PM on October 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

In a civil trial the range of possible judgements are “liable” to “not liable.” Legal “guilt” doesn’t come into it. And while the standards of proof for liability versus guilt are lower it remains the case that nobody has been found “not guilty.” Nobody has been exonerated here.
posted by sjswitzer at 4:33 PM on October 21, 2022 [3 favorites]

This "jury trials are the salvation of abusers" narrative helps no one and misunderstands what's even going on

So there are known problems with jury trials that make them vulnerable to abusers, particularly famous abusers. In particular, with the way that voir dire screens out certain kinds of professionals, and screens in people most likely to be familiar with and excited by celebrities. Talking about this is not a misunderstanding, even if it's simplified down to "jury trials are the salvation of abusers".
posted by corb at 7:03 PM on October 21, 2022 [7 favorites]

Rollo Tomasi
posted by kirkaracha at 8:23 PM on October 21, 2022 [2 favorites]

I make that joke about digitally subbing Tig Notaro for Kevin Spacey above and now I've been imagining The Usual Suspects with her as Verbal Kint, and I swear to God, it's even better.

"I remember one time when I was in barbershop quartet back in Skokie, Illinois..."

It works.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:44 PM on October 21, 2022 [13 favorites]

Tig Notaro always works.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 3:22 AM on October 22, 2022 [7 favorites]

honestly if it turned out Tig Notaro was making up elaborate stories to disguise her true identity as a vicious crime lord, I think the thing that would surprise me most was that Tig Notaro was capable of murder and not the fact that she was capable of an elaborate coverup
posted by Merus at 3:38 AM on October 22, 2022 [6 favorites]

It's not at all unheard of for jurors to feel their hands are tied by the rigidness of the justice system - or to be unhappy about evidence that was withheld from them, that they found out about after the trial.

Kristi, I appreciate the nuance here. I recently served on a jury, and myself and several other jurors were appalled at the narrowness of the definition of the charges and lack of wiggle room. It felt like we were there for decoration and the result was preordained. I regret being so ignorant of the law prior to getting called.

Of course, sadly, a good portion of the jurors seemed to get their rocks off on condemning someone, so it could have just been one asshole who believed men can't be sexually assaulted and everyone else wanted to get out of the room and get on with their life.
posted by jellywerker at 5:47 AM on October 22, 2022 [7 favorites]

I regret being so ignorant of the law prior to getting called.

It's a feature, not a bug. If you know something of the law, you will likely be eliminated during voir dire; they don't actually want people who are educated on law to sit juries. Our justice system, ladies and gentlemen!
posted by corb at 5:57 AM on October 22, 2022 [4 favorites]

People who work in the law will often say things during voir dire like, “I think most cops are liars and most personal injury claims are bullshit,” which tends to get them struck off juries.
posted by slkinsey at 8:16 AM on October 22, 2022 [2 favorites]