Hollywood Actor Kevin Spacey was on Thursday to appear in a court in London charged with four charges of sexual assault. The 62-year-old star was expected to be prosecuted in the Westminster Administrative Court from 0900 GMT. Spacey, a two-time Oscar winner of “The Usual Suspects” and “American Beauty,” was formally charged by police in the British capital on Monday. Due to media restrictions in place, the media cannot elaborate on the accusation to avoid harming the jury in court.
The first appearance in the Magistrates’ Court is primarily procedural, with the prosecutor sketching the prosecution and the judge setting bail. Defendants are generally not obliged to enter a formal plea at this stage. Police and prosecutors say the first two charges of sexual assault have been in London since March 2005 and are now related to the same man in his 40s. The third is alleged to have happened to a man in his thirties in London in August 2008.
Spacey was also charged with “engaging a person in permeable sexual activity without consent” against the same man. The fourth alleged sexual assault allegedly occurred in April 2013 in Gloucestershire, western England, against a third man, now in his thirties.
None of the alleged victims can be identified under English law. Spacey was Artistic Director of the Oldvic Theater in London from 2004 to 2015. Allegations against him emerged in the wake of the #MeToo movement, which saw numerous allegations of sexual assault and harassment in the film industry.
It prompted an investigation by the Metropolitan Police Department in London and an Old Vic review of his time. The 2017 claim to Spacey led to the end of his involvement in filming the final season of the political drama “House of Cards.” He also dropped out of Netflix’s Gore Vidal biography and as businessman John Paul Getty in “All Money in the World.” After the prosecutor announced last month that he had approved the indictment, Spacey said he was “disappointed” with the decision. But he said in his statement:
