Kevin Spacey goes to court as #MeToo trials begin

Rapp is suing Spacey for $40 million over an incident that took place in 1986, when Rapp was 14 years old

The stage is set for the legal battle between House of Cards star Kevin Spacey and Anthony Rapp. The two will square off in a federal courtroom on Thursday in the first of four #MeToo trials to get underway this month in New York and Los Angeles, reports Variety.

The other three trials involve producer Harvey Weinstein, director Paul Haggis, and actor Danny Masterson. The four cases — two civil, two criminal — each involve at least one sexual assault allegation against a once-powerful celebrity whose career was badly damaged, if not destroyed, in the court of public opinion.

According to Variety, coming five years after the #MeToo movement began, the trials will involve similar themes — power imbalances in the entertainment industry, the dynamics of sexual assault, the reliability of memories, and the nature of the due process.

Also Read: Why did #MeToo not reach the Indian classical arts?

In the first case, Rapp is suing Spacey for $40 million over an incident that took place in 1986, when Rapp was 14 years old. He has alleged that during a party at Spacey’s home in Manhattan, the actor picked him up, grabbed his buttocks, and laid down on top of him.

The website further states that the allegation, first made in a Buzzfeed article in October 2017, was the first of many against Spacey, which led to his firing from House of Cards and to criminal charges in London. In August, a judge upheld a $31 million damages award against Spacey in favour of MRC, the producer of House of Cards over its costs for writing him out of the series.

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