LONDON –
Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey has been charged with sexual offenses, including assaulting three men, following a police investigation in London, the British Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said on Thursday.
Police said the alleged offenses had taken place between March 2005 and April 2013, with four incidents in the capital and one in Gloucestershire. They involved a man who is now 40 and two men who are now 30.
“The CPS has authorized criminal charges against Kevin Spacey, 62, for four counts of sexual assault against three men,” Rosemary Ainslie, head of the CPS Special Crimes Division, said in a statement.
“He has also been charged with causing a person to engage in penetrating sexual activity without consent. The charges follow a review of the evidence gathered by the Metropolitan Police in their investigation.”
Spacey, once one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, has largely disappeared from public view since she was accused of sexual misconduct five years ago.
In November 2017, the Old Vic Theater in London said it had received 20 separate allegations of misconduct by Spacey from 20 men who came in contact with, or in connection with, the theater between 1995 and 2013.
He was removed from the TV show “House of Cards” and the movie “All the Money in the World” after allegations of sexual misconduct came to light.
The 62-year-old, who won the Oscar for Best Actor in “American Beauty” and Best Supporting Actor in “The Usual Suspects,” has previously denied all allegations of misconduct.
Roberto Cavazos, an actor who worked at Old Vic, where Spacey was artistic director between 2004 and 2015, said that in 2017 he had encounters with the Hollywood star at the time “who played what could be call harassment “.
It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post.
Spacey is being sued in the United States by actor Anthony Rapp, who accuses him of sexual assault and assault in the 1980s when Rapp was about 14 years old.
A Manhattan judge last year dismissed the claims of a second man suing Spacey, after the plaintiff refused to publicly identify himself.
In 2019, Massachusetts prosecutors dropped a criminal case accusing Spacey of sexually assaulting an 18-year-old man in a bar three years earlier after the alleged victim refused to testify.
(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by William James, Michael Holden and Catherine Evans)