Kevin Spacey faces new charges

Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey was accused of sexually assaulting three men in the UK between 2005 and 2013 by the Crown Prosecution Service on Thursday. While the CPS has authorized the charges, the police have not officially filed them against the star.

In addition to the sexual assault accusations, the 62-year-old actor has been charged with causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent in a 2008 incident in London during which he also allegedly sexually assaulted his accuser.

The Metropolitan Police began investigating the actor in 2017, with the agency’s Complex Case Team in the US interviewing him in 2019 and passing the case on to CPS last year.

Spacey allegedly sexually assaulted his accusers in March 2005 (twice) and August 2008 in London and in April 2013 in Gloucestershire.

Accusations of sexual misconduct against the Oscar-winning actor began surfacing in October 2017, leading the actor to quickly come out as gay in what many considered an attempt to distract from the growing list of claims against him.  

Three criminal charges filed against Spacey in the US were dismissed, one after it emerged that evidence had been tampered with, one after an anonymous accuser refused to identify himself, and one after the anonymous massage therapist accuser died, leaving just one case pending. Actor Anthony Rapp claimed Spacey molested the then-teenager at a party at Spacey’s home in 1986.

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Nevertheless, the sheer number of accusers and their reported ages at the time of the alleged assaults – several were minors at the time – led Hollywood to essentially blacklist Spacey, removing him from his starring role in the popular Netflix show ‘House of Cards’ and canceling several projects in which he was involved. Spacey has denied all sexual abuse allegations against him.

No court date has been set for the UK charges and it’s not clear whether the actor will need to be extradited to face them. He is currently staying in New York and has homes in the US and the UK.

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