Actor Kevin Spacey is a “sexual bully” who “takes pleasure in making others feel helpless or uncomfortable,” prosecutors said before a British jury on Friday. Speaking at the Southwark Court, prosecutor Christine Agnew outlined the case against an Academy Award-winning actor who is on trial in London on multiple sexual assault charges.
Agnew said the actor’s “favorite method of assault” was “actively grabbing another man’s crotch”. On one occasion, Spacey went even further and performed oral sex on a man while he was asleep.
Agnew said the actor “exploited the power and influence conferred by his reputation and fame to get who he wanted, when he wanted it.”
Spacey has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Actor Spacey, 63, faces 12 counts in connection with an incident that prosecutors say involved four men between 2001 and 2013. For most of that period Mr. Spacey was the artistic director of London’s Old Vic Theatre.
Agnew said the accusers included an aspiring actor and a man Spacey met at a work event. Under UK law, it is illegal to identify a whistleblower in a sexual assault case or to publish information that could identify a whistleblower.
Mr. Spacey’s legal representative, Patrick Gibbs, released a brief statement emphasizing his client’s innocence. He said jurors would hear half-truths, some “deliberate exaggerations” and “many outrageous lies.”
He asked the jury to consider the plaintiffs’ motives and whether the meeting “could reasonably have been consensual at the time.”
In a statement, Agnew referred to Spacey’s undercover interview with British police. In one of them, Mr. Spacey said it was “quite possible, and indeed likely,” that he had made “clumsy excuses” to another man, but “without a sign of consent, I never touched another person’s crotch,” he said. ”
During Agnew’s nearly 60-minute opening statement, Spacey sat in a large transparent box in the center of the courtroom, wearing a light gray suit, white shirt and gold tie, and stared. Several times he looked at the photos in the stack of evidence. As Mr. Gibbs spoke, Mr. Spacey nodded along and looked at the jury.
Friday morning’s session ended shortly after Mr. Gibbs’ comments. Prosecutors plan to call the first witnesses on Monday.
