Kevin Spacey’s lawyer challenges accuser’s memory at sex abuse trial

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Kevin Spacey’s lawyer on Tuesday challenged the memory of Anthony Rapp, on the stand in U.S. court to testify in his civil lawsuit against the Oscar-winning actor for making an unwanted sexual advance in 1986 when Rapp was 14.

Spacey, now 63, has denied Rapp’s accusations and sexual assault allegations by others. During cross-examination on Tuesday, Spacey’s lawyer Jennifer Keller questioned Rapp about his account of the encounter, which Rapp said took place in a bedroom at Spacey’s Manhattan apartment during a party.

Keller said in her opening statement last week in Manhattan federal court that Spacey, then 26, lived in a studio without a separate bedroom. Rapp, who starred in the Broadway musical “Rent,” said on Tuesday that he recalled there being a bedroom, but acknowledged that it was possible he was wrong.

“What you’re saying is what you remember and what is true can be two completely different things,” Keller said.

Keller also pressed Rapp – who was starting out his own Broadway career at the time – about scenes in the play in which he was acting where an older male character picked him up and laid down on top of him. She has implied the scene resembles what Rapp accuses Spacey of doing to him.

When Keller asked him if he had become “accustomed to the action of having a man crawl on top of you,” Rapp replied, “To some degree, yes.”

Spacey won Oscars for best actor in “American Beauty” and best supporting actor in “The Usual Suspects,” but his career largely ended after more than 20 men accused him of sexual misconduct.

Netflix (NASDAQ:) dropped him from its political drama series “House of Cards,” and Christopher Plummer replaced him in the role of J. Paul Getty in “All the Money in the World” weeks before the movie’s scheduled release.

Spacey faces a criminal trial in London next year after pleading not guilty to five sex offense charges over alleged assaults between 2005 and 2013.

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