The former Hollywood star will be tried from 9:30 a.m. (1:30 p.m. GMT) by a popular jury of the Manhattan Federal Civil Court presided by Judge Lewis Kaplan.

Before this civil jurisdiction, Kevin Spacey can be sentenced to significant damages, Mr. Rapp asking for 40 million dollars.

But the initial charge of "sexual assault" brought by Anthony Rapp was ultimately not upheld by Judge Kaplan, due to facts considered prescribed and not falling within the scope of New State law. York Child Protection Act 2019, which extends the statute of limitations.

Judge Kaplan upheld the charge of "harming the bodily integrity" of Anthony Rapp causing "emotional distress".

Two-time Oscar-winning actor for 'Usual Suspects' and 'American Beauty', full name Kevin Spacey Fowler, 63, has disappeared from screens and boards since he was one of the first performers swept away five years ago , in October 2017, by the global wave #Metoo, born in the United States.

His accuser is the American actor Anthony Rapp, who notably plays in the series "Star Trek: Discovery".

He had filed a complaint in September 2020 against Mr. Spacey for advances and an alleged sexual assault at a party in Manhattan in 1986.

Anthony Rapp was a 14 year old teenager.

Kevin Spacey had double that.

"Deeply moved"

At the end of October 2017, at the beginning of the #MeToo movement, Mr. Rapp accused Mr. Spacey for the first time, in great detail, in the media BuzzFeed News.

The next day on Twitter, Kevin Spacey presents his "sincere apologies" to him for his "drunk and deeply inappropriate (male) behavior".

After his 2020 complaint, Anthony Rapp's lawsuit is dropped in federal criminal court, but it's thriving in civil.

Judge Kaplan's order details that at the 1986 New York party, "according to Mr. Rapp's assertion, Mr. Fowler (Kevin Spacey, editor's note) lifted him up, his hand rubbed + for a few seconds the garment covering Mr. Rapp's buttocks, then Mr. Fowler put Mr. Rapp on a bed, on his back, before lying down fully clothed, briefly and partly to the side and on top of Mr. Rapp" .

The teenager was then quickly "extirpated" and left the party, according to justice.

During his deposition, 35 years after the events, Anthony Rapp agreed that there had been "no kissing, no undressing, no touching under clothing and no statements or insinuations of a sexual nature" during an "exchange " which had lasted no more than two minutes.

Kevin Spacey has already had trouble with the law in the United States and the United Kingdom.

In London, he is being prosecuted for sexual assaults on three men between March 2005 and April 2013, when he was the director of a theater, and for which he pleaded not guilty last July.

© 2022 AFP