The verdict in the civil trial came in a flash. Jurors in a federal court in New York deliberated for a little more than an hour before deciding that Rapp had not proven his allegations. When the verdict was read, Spacey bowed his head and then hugged his lawyers. He did not speak to reporters as he left the courthouse. “We are very grateful to the jury for seeing through these false allegations,” said his attorney, Jennifer Keller. “What follows is that Mr. Spacey will be proven innocent of anything he has been accused of. That there was no truth to any of the allegations,” he added, a reference to other sexual misconduct claims against the actor, including criminal charges in England. During the trial, Rapp testified that Spacey had invited him to his apartment for a party and then approached him in a bedroom after the other guests had left. He said the actor, then 26, picked him up and lay partially on top of him on a bed before he left and ran away as the drunk Spacey asked him if he was sure he wanted to leave. In his sometimes tearful testimony, Spacey told jurors that he never and would never be attracted to someone who was 14 years old. The lawsuit sought $40 million in damages. Rapp and his lawyers also left the courthouse without speaking to reporters. In his closing arguments to the jury Thursday, Rapp’s attorney, Richard Steiman, accused Spacey of lying on the witness stand. “He lacks credibility,” Steigman said. “Sometimes the simple truth is the best. The simple truth is that it happened.” Rapp, 50, and Spacey, 63, each testified for several days in the three-week trial. Rapp’s allegations, and those of others, abruptly halted a booming career for the two-time Oscar-winning actor, who lost his job on the Netflix series “House of Cards” and saw other opportunities dry up. Rapp is a regular on the television series “Star Trek: Discovery” and was part of the original Broadway cast of “Rent.” Spacey faced charges in Massachusetts that he growled at a man in a bar — allegations that were later dismissed by prosecutors. Three months ago, he pleaded not guilty in London to charges that he sexually assaulted three men between 2004 and 2015 when he was artistic director at the Old Vic theater in London. A judge in Los Angeles this summer upheld an arbitrator’s decision to order Spacey to pay $30.9 million to the creators of “House of Cards” for breaching his contract by sexually harassing crew members. The Associated Press does not typically name people who claim to have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Rapp did. At trial, Spacey testified that he was certain the meeting with Rapp never happened, in part because he lived in a studio apartment rather than the one-bedroom Rapp mentioned, and that he never had a gathering beyond a party. for the houses. “I knew I would have no sexual interest in Anthony Rapp or any child. I knew that,” he told jurors. During her closing arguments to the jury, Keller suggested reasons why Rapp imagined the meeting with Spacey or made it up. It was possible, he said, that Rapp invented it based on his experience performing in “Precious Sons,” a play in which actor Ed Harris takes Rapp’s character and lies on top of him, briefly mistaking him for his wife before finding out he is his son. He also suggested that Rapp later became jealous that Spacey had become a megastar while Rapp had “smaller roles in small shows” after his breakthrough performance in Broadway’s “Rent.” “Fame didn’t follow him,” Keller said. “Sir. Rap’s coach has turned into a pumpkin.” “So here we are today, and Mr. Rapp is getting more attention from this ordeal than he has in his entire acting life,” Keller said. He said that Rapp is very famous now because he has turned down one of the biggest actors in Hollywood. During two days of testimony, Spacey regretted a statement he issued in 2017 when Rapp first went public, in which he said he had no recollection of the meeting, but if it had happened “I owe him the sincerest apology for what would be deeply unbecoming drunken behavior.’ Dabbing his eyes with a tissue, Spacey said he had been pressured by reporters and lawyers to issue a compassionate statement at a time when the #MeToo movement was making everyone in the industry nervous. “I’ve learned a lesson, which is never to apologize for something you didn’t do,” he said. He also cried as he said he regretted publicly coming out as gay on the day Rapp’s allegations surfaced because some interpreted his announcement as an attempt to change the subject or deflect from Rapp’s revelations. Spacey had testified that he spoke at trial about deeply personal issues, telling jurors that his father was a white supremacist and neo-Nazi who criticized him as gay because he liked the theater. Spacey also gave courtroom viewers a brief taste of his acting chops when he impersonated his then-Broadway costar Jack Lemmon. He had earlier testified that his ability to impress helped him in his acting career.
This story has been updated to correct the day of the week in the main paragraph to Thursday, not Tuesday.
