Five years after “Rent” star Anthony Rapp publicly accused Kevin Spacey of sexual assault, a jury will hear the case in federal court in New York.
The civil trial is scheduled to start Thursday in downtown Manhattan at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Here’s what you need to know about the lawsuit.Rapp filed a lawsuit against Spacey in September 2020. Rapp alleged that Spacey acted to gratify his sexual desire during an encounter at a Manhattan party in 1986, when Rapp was 14 and Spacey would have been 26 or 27.
Rapp is seeking compensatory and punitive damages. The trial will center on Rapp’s claims of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The judge assigned to the case dismissed a sexual assault claim because Rapp brought it too late, according to a court document filed in June. “Mr. Rapp claims that Mr. Fowler lifted him up, that Mr. Fowler’s hand his [sic] ‘grazed’ Mr. Rapp’s clothed buttocks for seconds as he did so, that Mr. Fowler placed Mr. Rapp back-down on a bed, and Mr. Fowler then briefly placed his own clothed body partially beside and partially across Mr. Rapp’s,” according to the court document.
Rapp “wriggled out” and left the party. He testified at his deposition that “there was no kissing, no undressing, no reaching under clothes, and no sexualized statements or innuendo,” according to the court document. He alleges the encounter lasted no more than two minutes.BuzzFeed News article published on Oct. 29, 2017
. In the article, Rapp is quoted as saying: “He picked me up like a groom picks up the bride over the threshold. But I don’t, like, squirm away initially, because I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ And then he lays down on top of me.”“He was trying to seduce me,” Rapp added. “I don’t know if I would have used that language. But I was aware that he was trying to get with me sexually.”
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