Hollywood star Kevin Spacey on Thursday got acquitted from a $40 million sexual misconduct lawsuit brought against him, reports AFP.
A New York court dismissed the case against Spacey filed by an actor who claimed the Hollywood star targeted him when he was 14.
The jury-board found that Anthony Rapp, who was seeking damages for "emotional anguish," failed to prove that the two-time Oscar winner had "touched a sexual or intimate body part," leading Judge Lewis Kaplan to dismiss the civil case.
After deliberating for about an hour "the jury found the defendant not liable."
The 63-year-old star of "The Usual Suspects" and "House of Cards" was seen leaving court soon after the verdict was announced, without addressing reporters.
His lawyer said in a statement that "Mr. Spacey is grateful to live in a country where the citizens have a right to trial by impartial jurors who make their decision based on evidence and not rumor or social media."
Rapp "told his truth in court," said his attorney Peter Saghir in a statement to AFP.
"While we respect the jury's verdict, nothing changes what happened to him," he added.
One of the first stars to be caught up in the global #MeToo reckoning, Spacey has separately pleaded not guilty to charges of sexually assaulting three men in Britain between March 2005 and April 2013.
In 2019 charges against the actor of indecent assault and sexual assault were dropped in Massachusetts.
Rapp, who stars in the series "Star Trek: Discovery," alleged he was assaulted by Spacey at a party in Manhattan in 1986, when he was 14 and Spacey 26.
In his lawsuit the actor, now 50, accused Spacey of coming into a bedroom where he was watching television, of picking him up, lifting him onto a bed and briefly laying down next to him.
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
