Actor Kevin Spacey charged with indecent assault on teen in Massachusetts
Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey is facing a felony charge of indecent assault and battery on an 18-year-old busboy in Massachusetts stemming from an incident in July 2016 at a Nantucket bar, according to a criminal complaint filed in Nantucket District Court.
Spacey, 59, is scheduled to be arraigned in Nantucket District Court on Jan. 7, the complaint showed.
A criminal complaint, obtained by ABC News, was issued on Thursday by Nantucket District Court Clerk Magistrate Ryan Kearney following a public show-cause hearing. The criminal complaint was issued "against Kevin S. Fowler, also known as Kevin Spacey."
The Cape and Islands State Police Detective Unit launched an investigation into the former "House of Cards" actor after a young man contacted them by phone in October 2016 and alleged that Spacey plied him with beer and whiskey after meeting him at the Club Car in Nantucket, where he had worked that summer as a busboy, and sexually assaulted him, according to the criminal complaint.
In a subsequent face-to-face interview with detectives, the young man said he hung around the bar after he finished work on July 7, 2016, and talked to Spacey and even got an autograph from the actor for himself and his girlfriend.
"Things started to get a little fuzzy when [the alleged victim] and Spacey went over to the piano" at the Club Car, the criminal complaint reads.
He told investigators he "had at least four or five beers before Spacey said they should switch to whiskey, allegedly adding, 'Let's get drunk,'" according to the complaint.
The alleged victim admitted he lied to Spacey about his age, saying he was a 23-year-old college student attending Wake Forest University, the complaint states. He said Spacey tried to get him to go back to where he was staying on Nantucket, but he repeatedly declined the invitation, the complaint reads.
At one point during the night, he and Spacey were near the bar's piano with other customers singing when he alleged Spacey started rubbing his thigh and then unzipped the victim’s pants and began groping his genitals, the complaint alleges.
The busboy told detectives "he wasn't sure if Spacey went into his pants through the open zipper," or if the actor groped his genitals over his pants and boxer shorts, according to the complaint.
He said while Spacey was touching him, he was texting and communicating with his girlfriend on Snapchat, and even sent her Snapchat video of Spacey groping him, according to the complaint. He said the inappropriate touching occurred for about three minutes, the complaint reads.
The alleged victim told detectives that when Spacey went to the restroom, a woman came up to him and noticed that he was in distress. He said that when he told the woman that Spacey was "trying to rape" him, the woman told him to leave, according to the complaint.
The busboy said he ran to his grandmother's house where he was spending the summer and woke up his younger sister to tell her what happened.
He said the next day he told his mother, a former TV news anchor in Boston, and she told him to report the incident to police, according to the complaint.
Detectives also interviewed the owner of the bar and several employees and customers, but none of them witnessed Spacey doing anything inappropriate with the alleged victim, according to the complaint.
The alleged victim's mother held a press conference in November 2017 to speak about the incident.
"The victim, my son, was a star-struck, straight, 18-year-old young man who had no idea that the famous actor was an alleged sexual predator or that he was about to become his next victim," she told reporters. "Kevin Spacey bought him drink, after drink, after drink and when my son was drunk, Spacey made his move and sexually assaulted him."
Spacey could not be reached for comment on Tuesday, but posted a 3-minute YouTube video of himself on his verified Twitter account in the voice of his former character on "House of Card" Frank Underwood. The video was is titled "Let Me Be Frank."
"I shocked you with my honesty, but mostly I challenged you and made you think. And you trusted me even though you knew you shouldn't," Spacey, wearing an apron with Santa Claus figures on it, said in the video. "So we're not done no matter what anyone says. Besides I know what you want, you want me back. Of course, some believed everything and have just been waiting with bated breath to hear me confess it all. They're just dying to have me declare that everything said is true and that I got what I deserved.
"But you wouldn't believe the worst without evidence, would you? You wouldn’t rush to judgment without facts, would you? Did you? No, not you. You’re smarter than that," Spacey went on. "Of course they're going to say I'm being disrespectful, not playing by the rules, like I ever played by anyone's rules before. I never did and you loved it."
In Oct. 2017, actor Anthony Rapp claimed in a BuzzFeed interview that Spacey made sexual advances towards him at a party in 1986 when he was 14 and Spacey was 26.
When the story was made public, Spacey posted a statement on Twitter saying he is "beyond horrified" by the story, but doesn't remember the encounter. He went on to say he was examining himself and now chooses "to [openly] live as a gay man."
Spacey issued an apology to Rapp, but claimed he didn't remember the incident.
"But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years," Spacey said in his statement at the time.
Following the allegations by Rapp and the accusations made by Nantucket busboy, the producers of "House of Cards" announced it was severing ties with Spacey. The Netflix show returned for its final season without Spacey's character.
Spacey was also removed from the movie "All the Money in the World," which he had already filmed. Director Ridley Scott re-shot Spacey's scenes with his replacement, Christopher Plummer.
