Anthony Rapp’s Lawyer Offers In Closing Argument – Deadline

Anthony Rapp’s lawyer instructed jurors within the Kevin Spacey trial on Thursday that his consumer instructed the reality, constantly over time, about being sexually assaulted by the Oscar-winning actor in 1986 even when that fact was “messy” and didn’t at all times assist his case.

Within the first spherical of closing arguments in Rapp’s $40 million sexual misconduct swimsuit, lawyer Richard Steigman mentioned that Spacey’s solely protection at trial was to accuse Rapp of carrying on “a 35-year campaign” towards a fellow actor based mostly on a lie that has had conveniently shifting motives through the years — from romantic jealousy to skilled envy to homosexual rage to self-promotion — none of which Spacey’s attorneys ever proved.

Saying Rapp “cooked up that lie out of skinny air” was, in Steigman’s phrases, “a protection to a lawsuit: nothing extra and nothing much less. As a result of should you’re going to name a man a liar, then you definately’ve bought to offer him a motive.”

The protection will start its closing argument earlier than Choose Lewis Kaplan this afternoon in Manhattan.

Closing arguments opened with the jury one individual down, to 11 members: A juror who aggravated an previous again damage and was caught at dwelling was excused from the case. Deliberations by the remaining 11 jurors are anticipated to start this afternoon.

Rapp testified this week that in 1986, when he was 14, a 26-year-old Spacey bodily picked him “like a groom picks up a bride,” positioned him on a mattress in Spacey’s condominium after which climbed on prime of him in an try and provoke intercourse. 

His sexual misconduct allegations are amongst a number of that made Spacey an early focus of the #MeToo motion in 2017. The American Magnificence and The Ordinary Suspects Oscar winner and a number of Emmy nominee for Home of Playing cards additionally faces trial within the UK for an alleged sexual assault, with that case set for June, and he’s on the hook for $31 million awarded to Home of Playing cards producers Media Rights Capital as a result of the claims hastened the tip of the present and have been deemed a breach of his performing and producing agreements.

Sean Piccoli contributed to this report.