A prosecutor says it is greater than a coincidence that three of Kevin Spacey’s 4 accusers described related crotch-grabbing incidents
ByBRIAN MELLEY Related Press
LONDON — It was greater than a coincidence that three of Kevin Spacey ‘s 4 accusers described related crotch-grabbing incidents, a prosecutor mentioned Wednesday in her closing argument at his sexual assault trial.
Prosecutor Christine Agnew instructed a London jury that Spacey seized transient moments for an “alternative seize” and was in a position to get away with it for years as a result of he was a star.
The 2-time Oscar winner lengthy had benefited from a “trinity of safety,” figuring out that males he attacked wouldn’t complain. In the event that they did, he knew they wouldn’t be believed; in the event that they had been believed, he knew authorities wouldn’t take motion due to his standing, Agnew mentioned.
That started to alter after allegations within the U.S. arose in 2017 throughout the peak of the #MeToo motion when a fellow American actor accused him of sexually inappropriate conduct a long time earlier. Different allegations adopted and finally led the 4 males, who didn’t know one another, to independently complain to English police.
“Are all of them motivated by ‘cash, cash, cash’ as you had been instructed moderately dramatically by the defendant?” Agnew mentioned in quoting a snippet of Spacey’s testimony. “Or have all of them simply had sufficient of the key of the reality that they’ve been carrying round for a few years? They’re not ready to be the key keeper of somebody who handled them so badly.”
Spacey, 63, has pleaded not responsible to 9 fees, together with a number of counts of sexual and indecent assault and one rely of inflicting an individual to have interaction in penetrative sexual exercise with out consent. Initially he had confronted 13 fees however the decide on Wednesday eliminated 4 counts that duplicated the identical allegations below an older statute.
The actor testified over two days and denied sexually assaulting three males. He mentioned he had consensual encounters with two and downplayed crotch-grabbing allegations by a 3rd man as a “clumsy go.” He mentioned allegations he made racially insensitive remarks to a fourth man and violently grabbed his personal elements like a putting cobra had been “pure fantasy.”
The acts alleged between 2001 and 2013 escalated from undesirable touching to aggressive crotch-grabbing and, in a single occasion, performing an oral intercourse act on an unconscious man.
The protection has forged doubt on the accounts of the accusers and instructed they had been motivated by cash. Two of the lads have filed lawsuits towards Spacey and a 3rd man reached out by means of Spacey’s web site looking for to settle the felony case.
Spacey offered pictures one of many males had posted on social media of the 2 of them and a photograph that man despatched him from a mountain trek he took the place he claimed to have learn a Shakespeare soliloquy at Spacey’s suggestion from atop a peak.
Different protection witnesses mentioned Spacey would have had little or no alternative to assault a person backstage at a charity occasion, because the alleged sufferer claimed.