“That’s a succinct summary of humankind, I’d say. Who needs tomes and volumes of history? Children are dying. The injustices of the world hide in those three words.” - Steven Erikson.
Their lives will be made worse if food prices rise or if there's a shortage (thinking of the Ukrainian food stocks Russia is destroying & preventing from being shipped)
He's been doing work still (two movies this year) and I'd imagine some directors might start to bring him back in on indie stuff which is where he's usually best anyway.
Damn, I feel like his name’s been dragged through the mud these past few years. Not sure what the details of this whole thing are, but if the verdict is “Not Guilty” I guess that’s that.
Legal is not the same as moral or ethical. While he did not do things that were bad enough to lock him in a room over, we as a society are still allowed to socially punish him.
But what did he do? I’m not very tuned into everything that happened. Did he commit sexual assault or not? If they can’t charge him, I’d assume that means they can’t prove he did it right? OFC that doesn’t mean he actually didn’t, but I don’t see why anyone should “socially punish” him over something you don’t even know if he did or not, and something that he was found not guilty of.
I don’t mean for this sound like sexual assault apologia or something, I just really don’t understand the situation very well and trying to look this up online all I see is that he was accused and then found not guilty.
Agree about “legal being not the same as moral or ethical”, but calling for mob justice just isn’t something I would root for. The system isn’t perfect, of course, but one has to trust that people sitting in court have had access to more evidence than the randos of the internet, that, and the fact that everyone should be considered innocent until proven guilty.
everyone should be considered innocent until proven guilty.
Yes, absolutely. But the thing is that a lot of things are proven during trials that are immoral but not illegal. He could still have done a ton of indefensible stuff that makes him a bad person but still get a not guilty verdict. My point is that “Not being a criminal” is the lowest tier we should judge a person. If we are going to give a person a large amount of money and influence we are allowed to ask for more.
Yep, I get the sentiment, but it’s up to us to make amoral things illegal by means of democratic representation (assuming you live in a democratic country). It’s just slower, but that’s kind of the whole point of this :)
A verdict of not guilty doesn’t mean he didn’t do it, it just means it couldn’t be proven to a high enough standard. It doesn’t mean he DID do it either, but if he did and his accusers ended up being punished for false accusation, that would send a chill down the spine of any person who has been assaulted and is thinking of pressing charges on their abuser.
Yep, going after accusers should be something that only happens in extreme cases, like the accused being able to prove they weren’t even in the same State at the time or in some other way being impossible for them to have committed the act.
Uncanceled, I guess. After reading the background on his case and seeing this outcome I'd imagine we'll see him pop back up in a few projects assuming he doesn't just decide to retire.
If the accusations against him were really false, the accusers deserve to be in jail considering the amount of damage they did to his career and his reputation.
Assuming the UK has similar enough standards of evidence to the US, cleared of charges is not the same as a false accusation. There just might not have been sufficient evidence to convict him. On top of that, they would likely need some strong evidence to bring charges for a false accusation (which they might not have).
On October 29, 2017, actor Anthony Rapp alleged that Spacey, while appearing intoxicated, made a sexual advance toward him at a party in 1986, when Rapp was 14 and Spacey was 26.[118][119] Rapp had also shared this story in a 2001 interview with The Advocate, but Spacey’s name was redacted from publication to avoid legal disputes and public outing.[120] Spacey stated through Twitter that he did not remember the encounter, but that he owed Rapp “the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior” if he had behaved as asserted.[121][122] On September 9, 2020, Rapp sued Spacey for sexual assault, sexual battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress under the Child Victims Act.[123]
Fifteen others then came forward alleging similar abuse,[124] including Boston anchorwoman Heather Unruh, who alleged that Spacey sexually assaulted her son;[125][126] filmmaker Tony Montana; actor Roberto Cavazos;[127] Richard Dreyfuss’s son Harry;[128] and eight people who worked on House of Cards.[129] The Guardian was contacted by “a number of people” who alleged that Spacey “groped and behaved in an inappropriate way with young men” as artistic director of the Old Vic.[130][131][132]
Spacey also appears on flight logs from Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet from the early 2000s.[133]
Coming Out ControversyOn the same day as Rapp’s allegations against him, Spacey came out as gay when apologizing to Rapp. He said, “I have had relationships with both men and women. I have loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life, and I choose now to live as a gay man.”[134][135] His decision to come out via his statement was criticized by gay celebrities, including Billy Eichner, George Takei, Lance Bass, and Wanda Sykes, as an attempt to change the subject and shift focus from Rapp’s accusation, for using his own drunkenness as an excuse for making a sexual advance on a minor, and for implying a connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse.[136][137][138]
Some readers additionally felt that by claiming he was “horrified” by Rapp’s story, Spacey was attempting to paint himself as the victim of the alleged abuse.[139] In October 2022, Spacey expressed regret over the way he came out and said that it was “never [his] intention” to deflect from the allegations against him or conflate them with his sexual orientation.[140][141]
Reaction and ramificationsAmid the allegations, filming was suspended on the sixth and final season of House of Cards. The show’s production company had implemented “an anonymous complaint hotline, crisis counselors, and sexual harassment legal advisors for the crew”, and stated that in 2012, “someone on the crew shared a complaint about a specific remark and gesture made by Kevin Spacey. Immediate action was taken following our review of the situation and we are confident the issue was resolved promptly to the satisfaction of all involved.”[142] According to the production company, Spacey “willingly participated in a training process and since that time MRC has not been made aware of any other complaints” involving him.[143] The show had been due to end in 2018.[125] The season was shortened from 13 episodes to eight, and Spacey was removed from the cast and from his role as executive producer.[144]
The Gore Vidal biographical film Gore, starring Spacey, which was set to be distributed by Netflix, was canceled,[145][146] and Netflix went on to sever all ties with him.[147] He was due to appear in All the Money in the World as industrialist J. Paul Getty; his scenes were cut and Christopher Plummer replaced him as Getty in reshoots.[67] In an interview with Variety, Plummer said, “It’s really not replacing [Spacey]. It’s starting all over again.” Plummer elaborated saying, “I think it’s very sad what happened to him… Kevin is such a talented and a terrifically gifted actor, and it’s so sad. It’s such a shame. That’s all I can say, because that’s it.”[148]
The International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences reversed its decision to honor Spacey with the 2017 International Emmy Founders Award.[149] On November 2, 2017, Variety reported that his publicist Staci Wolfe and talent agency Creative Artists Agency were ending their relationships with him.
Legal issuesThe Los Angeles District Attorney’s office stated in April 2018 that it would investigate an allegation that Spacey had sexually assaulted an adult male in 1992.[158][159] In July 2018, three more allegations of sexual assault against Spacey were revealed by Scotland Yard, bringing the total number of open investigations in the UK to six.[160] In September 2018, a lawsuit filed at Los Angeles Superior Court claimed that Spacey sexually assaulted an unnamed masseur at a house in Malibu, California, in October 2016.[161]
In December 2018, Spacey was charged with a felony for allegedly sexually assaulting journalist Heather Unruh’s 18-year-old son in Nantucket, Massachusetts, in July 2016.[162] Spacey pleaded not guilty to the charge on January 7, 2019.[163][164] Unruh’s son told police he was texting with his girlfriend throughout the alleged “groping” incident. Spacey’s defense attorneys spent months trying to obtain copies of the texts and the phone itself. In mid-May 2019, Unruh’s son’s personal attorney informed the court that the cell phone in question is “missing”.[165] On June 4, 2019, the defense learned that when Unruh gave her son’s cell phone to police in 2017, she admitted she had deleted some of the text messages.[165] Later that month, her son filed a lawsuit against Spacey, claiming emotional damages. On July 5, 2019, he voluntarily dismissed the claims with prejudice.[166]
On July 17, 2019, the criminal assault charge against Spacey was dropped by the Cape and Islands prosecutors.[167] When the anonymous massage therapist who accused him died, the last remaining criminal case against Spacey was closed.[168]
On September 9, 2020, Anthony Rapp accused Spacey in a complaint about actions that allegedly happened in 1986 (sexual assault and sexual battery) and intentional infliction of emotional distress under the Child Victims Act, which extended New York’s statute of limitations for suits related to child sexual abuse.[123] Joining Rapp in the suit against Spacey was a man who requested to remain anonymous who accused Spacey of sexually abusing him in 1983, when he was 14 and Spacey was 24.[169][170] On June 17, 2021, the anonymous accuser was dismissed from the case due to his refusal to publicly identify himself.[171] As Rapp’s trial lawsuit against Spacey commenced in October 2022, it was revealed that he had given an inaccurate description of the apartment where he alleged the abuse took place.[172][173] On October 17, the judge dismissed the emotional distress charges due to them being a “duplicate” of the battery charges.[14] On October 20, a jury found Spacey not liable.[174][175]
In 2020, Spacey and his production companies M. Profitt Productions and Trigger Street Productions were ordered to pay $31 million to MRC, the studio that produced House of Cards, for violating its sexual harassment policy.[176] Spacey appealed to have the arbitration award overturned, but the request was denied on August 4, 2022.[177]
On May 26, 2022, Spacey was charged by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in the United Kingdom with four counts of sexual assault against three complainants. The alleged offenses occurred between 2005 and 2013 in London and Gloucestershire.[178][179] According to the Crown Prosecution Service, it would only be possible to formally charge Spacey if he entered England or Wales. If Spacey refused to do so voluntarily an extradition process would have been necessary.[180] Nevertheless, in a statement to Good Morning America on May 31, 2022, Spacey said that he would “voluntarily appear in the U.K. as soon as can be arranged”.[181]
In his first British court appearance on June 16, Spacey denied the allegations against him.[182] On July 14, 2022, Spacey pleaded not guilty to the charges in London. [183][184] On November 16, 2022, the CPS authorized an additional seven charges against Spacey, all related to a single complainant arising from incidents alleged to have occurred between 2001 and 2004.[185][186] Three charges were dismissed before or during the trial which began on June 28, 2023, and on July 26, 2023, a jury found Spacey not guilty of the remaining nine charges.
Frankly I wish more court details were in the articles about this. There are a lot of accusers and info on the wiki, I can’t help but feel if he was accused of assaulting women this would have gone differently
Yeah, we need to see more details. The allegations against him were serious. This was a spot copy so is understandably sparse on details. I guess we will see more in depth stories being published by tomorrow.
Hard to tell what actually happened. Looks like he/she (he?) said thing. Why are some of these charges being brought decades later. If incident happened, the evidence can only be gathered right after, otherwise, it will be just that he/she said, which is not enough for a criminal conviction.
Why are some of these charges being brought decades later.
Because accusing a likeable and famous actor while you’re a nobody, will either be ignored or lead to thousands of hateful messages in your inbox every day, unless enough others came forth first.
Well, then the entire case is just an accusation without much evidence besides "trust me bro" and outside of Weinstein who was notorious, it is very unlikely to result in conviction.
Criminal law requires evidence, otherwise it would be abused by people to get rid of people they don't like or for profit.
This is actually the truth. I am a CSA survivor, and I didn’t report and now I wish so bad I did.
If anyone reading this has recently been through it, report it now! Don’t wait 20 years like me to even confront it and then never have a chance at closure.
Why are some of these charges brought decades later?
If the case isn’t iron clad you’ll have to defend against libel and it gets ugly fast. See for example the case of Evan Rachel Wood or Amber Heard, who had to not only defend herself once, but twice losing once and having her reputation utterly ruined because the one time she lost got so much more media attention.
See also this interview from 2005! Thats 17 years before Weinstein was finally found guilty. www.tmz.com/watch/0-2mpyk0xk/
I think Heard is an excellent example because Depp lost the UK trial, but won the US one which got so much more attention. Plus despite the claim Depp’s side put forth that “the abuse was a hoax” being found libelous, as in the jury decided it wasn’t a hoax, this didn’t get any attention and Heard is made out to be the sole villain in the story and having made it all up to hurt Johnny Depp.
This will make victims think thrice before even speaking up against (much less sue) celebrities as they risk being vilified if the case isn’t ironclad.
A case like this should be ironclad, though. "Beyond all reasonable doubt" is the standard for criminal charges. I wouldn't want people to be convicted of life-ruining crimes based on non-ironclad cases.
I’m saying the evidence doesn’t just have to be “ironclad” enough for a guilty verdict, it has to be so overwhelming that the outcome of the trial can be reasonably certain before a case is made. Why would I argue for the standard for evidence in a trial to be lessened? That doesn’t make sense.
Claiming Heard is victim here is not fair to actual victims but that's just an opinion.
Also, she is celebrity herself, I highly doubt she was scared to sue.
Most people did not believe her for various reasons. Since she decided to take the entire drama into court of public opinion, people are entitled to make their own judgement, which they did, just not in the way she expected or wanted.
I don’t think this changes thing. Not for me at least. He’s had at least a dozen other people accuse him - including people that don’t need his money or notoriety. And while he was cleared of criminal wrong doing in the Anthony Rapp case, I don’t think he ever denied making an advance on a 14 year old boy. Just that he “didn’t remember it” - which hardly matters. I don’t care how drunk I get. I’m not accidentally going to hit on children.
That’s kind of the point. We live in a system that is supposed to be “innocent until proven guilty”. Not because people who commit crimes should get away with them, but because the opposite system would be completely untenable. How exactly is he supposed to prove that he is innocent? I don’t care how sure anyone is that he did it. Prove it, or by our legal standard, he must be considered innocent.
If you want to live in a society where accusation is tantamount to fact, you’re going to regret it as soon as anyone says anything about you.
Your conflating the legal system with greater society. He’s not in jail or paying a settlement because there wasn’t enough evidence to convict him in court. The rest of society is not bound by these same restrictions and are free to pass judgment as they please.
I wouldn’t say accusations are tantamount to fact, but when you get dozens of people making the same accusation, about a crime that’s difficult to prosecute and convict because of the nature of the crime, it’s hard to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Are you not also passing judgement on the accusers here? You’re essentially calling them all liars who are guilty of making false reports. Both sides can’t be “innocent” here.
They were responding to a comment about the legal system and problems with prosecuting SA cases, so of course they are going to be discussing that over the wider social implications.
I don’t know why you are jumping to conclusions here. The point they made about the legal system is extremely valid. As a survivor of CSA myself it’s something I confront in my mind every single day, but they are right: the opposite method would be horrific.
I mean these types of comments come from the same crowd that chants “eat the rich” at every opportunity, without considering that, for the vast majority of the world, they are the rich and henceforth deserving of being “eaten”
WOW the number of people in this thread immediately jumping to the accusers being "false" and deserving jail. Because no actual sexual predator ever got away with it in court...
(Sex crimes are extraordinarily difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt because the actions are taken in private without a lot of physical evidence. Which sexual predators rely on to get away with their crimes, by the way.)
Perhaps we should review the sheer volume of young men from all over the US & UK reporting that Spacey was at best inappropriate with them. One of the youngest being 14 years old:
Yeah this whole thing isn't simple. Even if he's cleared of charges, these allegations are old and that makes them hard to prove or disprove.
Further, the quantity is concerning. Maybe he's just prolifically sexual but my gut can't really get passed how many accusations there are over such a long span of time. Even if innocent, still creepy is my opinion.
And also not admissible in a criminal court. That's part of the problem. If you look at the big picture, it's obvious he did it, but it's not as easy to prove it in criminal court.
Is it really obvious that he did something, or is it obvious that he’s another gay man being attacked for daring to publicly admit that he’s gay? Sure there’s a lot of allegations, but many of them were dropped by the accusers, and as the article points out there was a huge rush of “me too” allegations brought out against many people at the same time because it was the trending get-rich-quick scheme. Even in Spacey’s case, why did most of these allegations not come out until he admitted he was gay?
IMHO if Spacey is actually guilty of these crimes, he’s going to be blackballed by all the studios and won’t ever be seen on the screen again. Although the courts didn’t prove him guilty, the studios know who is doing what, and in today’s market any further allegations will cost them money.
Even in Spacey’s case, why did most of these allegations not come out until he admitted he was gay?
I think it went the other way around, didn’t it? At least the first accusations came out, and he used the occasion to say “I didn’t do that! But now that I’m talking about this stuff, by the way I’m gay.”
It wasn’t a great look, because it came across that he tried to deflect the accusations by coming out as gay.
True enough, and he caught hell for the timing of that announcement. There’s also the issue of there just being such a different culture of what’s “acceptable” in Hollywood. I think it’s great that it finally came to light and those activities were at least tempered somewhat, but I also remember reading a lot of claims a decade ago and just thinking to myself that this is something you’re claiming ‘everyone’ in Hollywood is doing, but you chose to specifically target this one actor? The “me too” train was real, and a lot of people were going after big name actors, so I got burnt out on the whole thing and just stopped paying any attention to it.
In general, any multimillionaire that gets off of a serious charge doesn’t mean they’re innocent.
Don’t forget the flip-side of that - the prisons are full of poor people who do not deserve to be there. It’s almost as if the system was designed to be like this…
Also, being a multimillionaire puts a target on your back. I’ll never forget the story about a man who already had a couple of million winning a huge lottery and how lawsuits, among other ever worse things, destroyed his life.
Indeed. In a thread a couple of days back on a different (though related) subject I was accused of being a rape apologist because I was insistent on the presumption of innocence and the beyond-reasonable-doubt standards that need to be overcome when accusations like this are slung. But it works the same in the other direction too - we can't assume that an accuser is guilty of fraud or libel or filing false reports or whatever just because they failed to prove their case.
It would not be good for justice if these situations ended up being "now that the accusation has been made someone is going to go to jail, either the accused or the accuser." The Thunderdome is not a good model to emulate.
accused of being a rape apologist because I was insistent on the presumption of innocence
Good thing to insist on, but be prudent. Keep in mind that, at least on reddit, there’s a tendency for every thread about rape to become a thread about false accusations. I wasn’t there, but in general, sometimes people object not to the presumption of innocence but to people bringing it up.
I refuse to believe you're actually this stupid. There's a universe of difference between "it didn't happen" and "it couldn't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in court" and you know there is.
Unless you really think OJ didn't murder his wife either
I refuse to believe you’re actually this stupid. You’re throwing these statements as if you have first hand experience of knowing these things happened. Like were you there in person when Spacey was assaulting these people or were you a witness when OJ killed his wife? You don’t wanna believe the witnesses, you don’t wanna believe the jury, you don’t don’t wanna believe in the legal systems (cops/courts and whatever have you). But you believe in some people accusing someone of something. EVEN if they cleared themselves of these accusations.
Are you actually this ignorant to not know that all people are all not down to earth and sometimes people can and do crazy shit. Why do you think there’s zero percent chance that these people were bad, but Kevin Spacey is 100 percent bad without a shadow of a doubt for seemingly just being rich?
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