Kevin Spacey’s prosecutor denies defense claim he fabricated sexual assault

LONDON –

A man who says Kevin Spacey subjected him to a barrage of verbal abuse and grabbed him by the crotch denied the Hollywood star’s lawyer’s claims on Thursday that he fabricated the assault allegations, saying he was “horrific”. incident had been bottled up for years.

The man is one of four who say the two-time Academy Award winner assaulted them in Britain between 2001 and 2013. For much of that time, Spacey was Artistic Director of the Old Vic Theater in London.

Spacey, 63, is on trial in a London court on 12 charges, including assault, indecent assault and inciting penetrative sexual activity without a person’s consent. He denies all allegations and his lawyer has suggested that prosecutors are seeking payoffs from Spacey.

The third alleged victim who testified said Spacey, who smelled strongly of alcohol, peppered him with a “machine gun” barrage of bad verbal abuse before grabbing him by the crotch “like a cobra” backstage at a London theater at a charity event in the early 2000s.

During cross-examination, Spacey’s attorney, Patrick Gibbs, claimed that many parts of the prosecution’s story were “not true at all.”

“With the utmost respect, you weren’t there and I was,” replied the man, who cannot be identified under UK law and who made a statement out of public view. ‘It was horrible. And I’ve never had anyone talk to me that way before.’

He said the incident made him feel “humiliated” and “like I was worthless”.

The man denied the lawyer’s suggestion that he had tried to monetize his meeting with Spacey.

Pressured as to why he did not speak out at the time, the prosecution said that “Mr. Spacey was a shining light of the West End” and feared that “if I speak up, I will be the problem.”

“It was so horrible. I kept it in a box in my head and tried not to think about it,” he said.

The alleged victim is the third man to say Spacey aggressively grabbed his crotch, and prosecutors have described the actor as a predatory “sexual bully.”

The jury of nine men and three women will hear from a fourth plaintiff next week. The trial began last week at London’s Southwark Crown Court and is expected to last nearly a month.

Spacey, who is out on unconditional bail, could face a prison sentence if convicted.

One of Hollywood’s biggest names until allegations of sexual misconduct derailed his career, Spacey won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the 1995 film “The Usual Suspects” and a Leading Actor Oscar for the 1999 film “American Beauty”. London’s Old Vic between 2004 and 2015.