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US actor Kevin Spacey charged with sexual assault of 18-year-old boy

In this AFP file photo taken on February 22, 2016, actor Kevin Spacey arrives at the season 4 premiere screening of the Netflix show "House of Cards" in Washington, DC.

Academy Award-winning US actor Kevin Spacey has been charged with sexually abusing an 18-year-old boy at a bar in Nantucket, Massachusetts, more than two years ago, according to local prosecutors.

Spacey is scheduled to be arraigned at Nantucket District Court on January 7 on a single charge of indecent assault and battery on a person who is at least 14 years old, Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe  said in a statement.

The charge against Spacey, 59, whose full name is Kevin Spacey Fowler, was filed after a court hearing on December 20, O’Keefe said.

Heather Unruh, a television journalist in Boston, Massachusetts, alleged in November 2017 that her 18-year-old son was sexually assaulted by the actor at the Club Car restaurant and bar in Nantucket on July 7, 2016.

At a news conference in which she made the allegations, Unruh said Spacey bought her son several alcoholic drinks before the assault.

“Kevin Spacey bought him drink after drink after drink, and when my son was drunk, Spacey made his move and sexually assaulted him,” Unruh said at the 2017 news conference.

The Hollywood actor allegedly stuck his hands into her son’s pants and grabbed his genitals, she said, adding it was “completely unexpected” and her son tried unsuccessfully to shift his body away from Spacey.

“He did not report the crime at the time, and that was largely because of embarrassment and fear,” she said.

Unruh said her son filed a report with police in Nantucket, a resort island off the southern coast of Massachusetts, shortly before her news conference.

More than 30 men have said they were victims of unwanted sexual advances by Spacey, who became embroiled in controversy last year when actor Anthony Rapp accused him of trying to seduce him in 1986 when Rapp was 14.

In October 2017, Spacey apologized for any inappropriate conduct with Rapp but has not commented since.

The fallout resulted in Spacey, who won an Oscar for best actor in 2000 for “American Beauty,” being dropped from the final season of “House of Cards” and erased from the 2017 movie “All the Money in the World.”

Spacey is one of dozens of men in the US entertainment industry and politics who have been accused of sexual misconduct, partly as a result of the #MeToo social media movement that began over a year ago.


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