{"id":102235,"date":"2022-10-20T00:32:09","date_gmt":"2022-10-20T00:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/kevin-spacey-defense-rests-in-anthony-rapps-40m-sex-misconduct-suit-deadline\/"},"modified":"2022-10-20T00:32:09","modified_gmt":"2022-10-20T00:32:09","slug":"kevin-spacey-defense-rests-in-anthony-rapps-40m-sex-misconduct-suit-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/kevin-spacey-defense-rests-in-anthony-rapps-40m-sex-misconduct-suit-deadline\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Spacey Defense Rests In Anthony Rapp’s $40M Sex Misconduct Suit \u2013 Deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tUPDATED, 1:42 PM: <\/strong>With the jurors gone, Judge Lewis Kaplan and the lawyers in Anthony Rapp’s civil suit against Kevin Spacey trial spent their last hour in court Wednesday hashing out instructions and a verdict form for jurors, who will be hearing closing arguments beginning Thursday morning. In the back and forth over how to phrase the legal instructions that will guide the jury’s deliberations, the judge made a couple of rulings that appeared to favor Spacey’s defense team over Rapp’s. <\/p>\n

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\tKaplan said \u201cthere’s bundles of evidence\u201d that Rapp contributed to his own mental distress by going public with his claim of sexual misconduct, \u201cexposing himself to the argument and watching Kevin Spacey movies ad nauseam,\u201d despite the discomfort he tested that the movies caused him.<\/p>\n

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\t\u201cA jury could find that was unreasonable,\u201d he said, declining to modify jury instructions on whether any of Rapp’s own conduct would lessen Spacey’s liability. <\/p>\n

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\tA Spacey lawyer, Chase Scolnick, for that Rapp violated the judge’s order asked against trying to introduce other people’s languagejurs against Spacey and that jurors could use that violation to Rapp’s credibility.<\/p>\n

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\t\u201cI came forward because I knew I was not the only one that Keven Spacey had made inappropriate sexual advances to,\u201d Rapp testified \u2014 a pronouncement the judge quickly ordered struck from the record and told jurors to ignore. <\/p>\n

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\tThe judge denied the request, telling Scolnick, \u201cIt’s your job to sum up to the jury, not mine.\u201d But he added that he was \u201cvery troubled\u201d by what Rapp said, having already stricken something else Rapp said earlier in the trial: \u201cI brought this argument hopeful that I maybe could help protect others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPREVIOUSLY, 11:32 AM: <\/strong>Kevin Spacey’s lawyers on Wednesday wrapped up their case in Star Trek: Discovery <\/em>actor Anthony Rapp’s $40 million sexual misconduct suit against the embattled former star, with a psychiatrist hired by Spacey’s team as the last witness before jurors hear closing arguments scheduled for Thursday.<\/p>\n

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\tA lawyer for Rapp, Richard Steigman, spent the morning grilling the defense’s mental health expert, forensic psychiatrist Alexander Bardey, who tested that Spacey’s accuser isn’t afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder and instead shows traits of narcissism. <\/p>\n

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\tSteigman challenged Bardey for saying that Rapp self-reported \u201coff the charts\u201d levels of trauma, anxiety and depression to the psychologist hired by Rapp’s legal team while showing moderate levels of mental distress, or none at all, on other tests that rely less on the test-taker’s own word.<\/p>\n

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\tSteigman produced one test Rapp took, a so-called \u201canxiety inventory,\u201d with a maximum score of 63 indicating the highest levels of anxiety. Rapp’s score was 19. \u201cNineteen out of 63 \u2014 off the charts, right, doc?\u201d Steigman said. Bardey said \u201coff the charts\u201d was his \u201cclinical judgment\u201d and an \u201cassessment of the totality\u201d of his own screening of Rapp. <\/p>\n

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\tRapp’s mental state, and whether Spacey affected it, is a central question of this federal case in Manhattan, brought under a New York State law that allows decades-old of sexual abuse to be tried after the normal statute of limitations. Rapp tested that in 1986, when he was 14, a 26-year-old Spacey physically picked him \u201clike a groom picks up a bride,\u201d placed him on a bed in Spacey’s apartment, and then climbed on top of him in an attempt to initiate sex. <\/p>\n

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\tRapp tested that he wriggled free but it was still \u201cthe most traumatic single invent\u201d in his life. The Rapp team’s psychologist, Lisa Rocchio, tested that Rapp has struggled with relationships, sexuality, anger, depression and ever since, and in 2017 developed delayed onset, full-blown PTSD. <\/p>\n

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\tRapp’s lawyers sought to show that Rapp gave consistent answers across a battery of tests, some entirely self-reported and some designed to identify people who fake or exaggerate mental illness. Spacey’s lawyers have suggested that if Rapp isn’t faking symptoms to bolster his claim for millions of dollars in damages, he’s blaming Spacey for other, arguably more traumatic events in his life including another sexual encounter at age 14 that he wrote about unfavorably in his memoir<\/p>\n

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\tBardey said that Rapp telling friends over the years that Spacey abused him, but not his therapist until after he went public with his claim, was proof of a narcissistic trend to turn the spotlight on himself. Steigman, in his last words on the matter, asked, \u201cAre there narcissists who become A-list actors and win Tonys and other awards?,\u201d an apparent reference to Tony and Oscar winner Spacey.<\/p>\n

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\tWith that, Judge Lewis Kaplan sent jurors home until Thursday. He then entertained, and denied, a motion by defense lawyer Jay Barron \u2014 who already got the judge to throw out a claim of emotional distress \u2014 to throw out Rapp’s last remaining claim of physical battery. Kaplan also declined a motion to remove the punitive damages claim. But he indicated that he might revise the questions while keeping the battery claim intact \u201cat least for now,\u201d and working with the lawyers to decide what, exactly, jurors will be asked to decide. <\/p>\n

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\tRapp’s were among several that made Spacey an early focus of the #MeToo movement in 2017. The American Beauty <\/em>and The Usual Suspects <\/em>Oscar winner and multiple Emmy nominee for House of Cards<\/em> also faces trial in the UK for an alleged sexual assault, with that case set for June, and he is on the hook for $31 million awarded to House of Cards<\/em> producers Media Rights Capital because the claims hastened the end of the show and were deemed a breach of his acting and producing agreements.<\/p>\n

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\tAs with all the accusations against him made over the past several years, Spacey denies anything inappropriate ever occurred.<\/p>\n

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\tThe trial is expected to wrap up this week.<\/p>\n

\n\tSean Piccoli contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n