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LONDON (Reuters) – British authorities have cleared criminal charges against Kevin Spacey for sexually assaulting three men on four counts, the country’s prosecutors said in a press release on Thursday.
Rosemary Ainslie, chief of the service’s Special Crimes Unit, said in the release that the service also approved an indictment against Mr. Spacey, 62, for “causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.” “.
The charges were approved following a review of evidence collected by London Police. Mr Spacey cannot be formally charged unless he enters England or Wales, a spokesman for the service said in a telephone interview. The spokesman declined to comment on whether the service would start extradition proceedings if it didn’t.
The press release states that the indictment affects three applicants. The incidents dated from March 2005, August 2008 and April 2013, she added – a time when Mr Spacey was artistic director of the Old Vic Theater in London. All of the incidents occurred in London, with the exception of one incident in 2013, which occurred in Gloucestershire, England. The Metropolitan Police said one of the men is now “in his 40s” and the other two are now in their 30s, but did not give their exact ages.
Representatives for Mr. Spacey did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The first person to publicly accuse Mr. Spacey of sexual misconduct was actor Anthony Rapp, who said in 2017 that Mr. Spacey made unwanted sexual advances towards him in the 1980s when he was 14 years old.
Soon after, a former TV presenter came forward to accuse Mr. Spacey of sexually abusing their son, and then 20 people who worked with Mr. Spacey at London’s Old Vic Theater, where he was artistic director for 11 years, accused him was inappropriate behavior.
The theater commissioned an independent investigation, in which Mr. Spacey did not take part, and issued a report which concluded that “its fame and status at the Old Vic may have prevented people, and particularly up-and-coming talent or young actors, from doing so.” You could speak up or raise your hand for help.”
According to the report, the theater had not been able to independently verify the allegations. But some actors and staff went public. One actor, Roberto Cavazos, wrote on Facebook that he had “a couple of nasty encounters with Spacey that were almost called harassment” at the theater. “It seems it only took one man under 30 for Mr. Spacey to feel free to touch us,” Mr. Cavazos wrote.
The Old Vic said in a statement it could not comment on ongoing criminal proceedings.
In 2018, Mr Spacey was charged with sexually assaulting the TV host’s 18-year-old son in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Prosecutors dropped the case when the accuser invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify further.
A massage therapist sued Mr. Spacey in California in 2019, accusing him of groping him and attempting to kiss him before offering him oral sex during a massage. The accuser died unexpectedly before trial and the case was dismissed when his estate dropped the case.
Mr. Spacey is a two-time Oscar winner. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2000 for his work in American Beauty and in 1996 he won Best Supporting Actor for The Usual Suspects. He was also a prominent stage actor, winning a Tony Award for Lead Actor in Lost in Yonkers in 1991 and hosting the 2017 Tony Awards.
But he quickly fell out of favor following allegations from Mr Rapp, who has an ongoing lawsuit against him that was followed by more allegations. After Mr. Rapp’s allegations were first published on BuzzFeed, Mr. Spacey released a statement saying he did not remember the episode but apologizing for what he said “would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.” “. In court filings, Mr. Spacey dismissed Mr. Rapp’s allegations that when he was a minor, Mr. Rapp grabbed his buttocks and lifted him onto a bed.
Mr. Spacey appeared in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday for a hearing on the proper venue for Mr. Rapp’s lawsuit. As he exited the courthouse, Mr. Spacey declined to answer reporters’ questions about developments in Britain, according to the New York Post.
TV and film producers began removing Mr. Spacey from projects after Mr. Rapp went public, and more allegations followed, including Netflix political drama House of Cards, which ended its run without the actor. But more recently he has found roles in smaller films, including an Italian feature and an American thriller.
In January, Croatian newspapers reported that Mr Spacey was shooting a film in the country where he played Franjo Tudjman, the former communist general who led Croatia to independence.
This month, Deadline reported that he had signed on for a historical drama titled ‘1242: Gateway to the West’, which is due to start filming in Hungary and Mongolia in October. The film would tell the story of one of Genghis Khan’s grandsons. It was sold at the Cannes Film Festival, Deadline added. His new American thriller also sold in Cannes, according to Rolling Stone.
Alex Marshall reported from London and Julia Jacobs from New York. Susan Beachy contributed to the research.