Months after a series of allegations of sex crimes against actor Kevin Spacey hit the headlines, a Los Angeles County district attorney is now officially investigating the issue.
According to a spokesperson for the DA, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department presented a case against the actor to prosecutors on April 5, triggering an official investigation, KTLA reports. The development comes nearly six months after Spacey was accused by actor Anthony Rapp of having made sexual advances on him when he was a teenager, an allegation Spacey did not deny. Rapp’s accusation set off a series of similar charges of sexual misconduct against Spacey, who has since effectively withdrawn from public life.
In an account published by BuzzFeed on October 29, 2017, Rapp said that when he was just 14-years-old and Spacey was 26, the actor invited him over to his apartment where he was having a party. Being the only young person at the party, Rapp says he eventually got bored and went into a bedroom and watched TV. When Spacey appeared at the door, Rapp realized everyone had left; that’s when he says Spacey tried to force himself on him:
Spacey, he recalled, “sort of stood in the doorway, kind of swaying. My impression when he came in the room was that he was drunk.” Rapp doesn’t remember Spacey saying anything to him. Instead, Rapp said, “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 said. “I don’t know if I would have used that language. But I was aware that he was trying to get with me sexually.”
Rapp recalled this all happening — Spacey appearing at the door, coming into the room, picking him up, and putting him on the bed — in one clumsy action, with Spacey landing at a slight angle on top of him. He said Spacey “was, like, pressing into me,” and that he remembers Spacey “tightening his arms.” But while he can’t recall exactly how long Spacey remained on top of him, Rapp said he was able to “squirm” away after a short period.
Spacey did not deny the allegation. Instead, he responded by infamously shifting the narrative to his homosexuality, the so-called “Jim McGreevey defense“:
GLAAD, among others, condemned Spacey’s response. “Coming out stories should not be used to deflect from allegations of sexual assault,” said GLAAD CEO Sarah Kate Ellis. “This is not a coming out story about Kevin Spacey, but a story of survivorship by Anthony Rapp and all those who bravely speak out against unwanted sexual advances. The media and public should not gloss over that.”
Several others have come forward to accuse Spacey of similar sexual misconduct, including the son of Richard Dreyfuss, who said Spacey groped him when he was 18-years-old while his father was in the room. In the wake of the Rapp allegations, Netflix canceled Spacey’s “House of Cards.”