LONDON — British prosecutors said Thursday they have charged actor Kevin Spacey with four counts of sexual assault against three men.
The Crown Prosecution Service said Spacey “has also been charged with causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.”
The alleged incidents took place in London between March 2005 and August 2008, and one in western England in April 2013. The alleged victims are now in their 30s and 40s.
Rosemary Ainslie, head of the service’s Special Crime Division, said the charges follow a review of evidence gathered by London’s Metropolitan Police.
Spacey, a 62-year-old double Academy Award winner, was questioned by British police in 2019 about claims by several men that he had assaulted them. The former “House of Cards” star ran London’s Old Vic Theatre between 2004 and 2015.
Spacey won a best supporting actor Academy Award for the 1995 film “The Usual Suspects” and a lead actor Oscar for the 1999 movie “American Beauty.”
His celebrated career came to an abrupt halt in 2017 when actor Anthony Rapp accused the star of assaulting him at a party in the 1980s, when Rapp was a teenager. Spacey denies the allegations.
The U.K. charges were announced Thursday as Spacey was testifying in a courtroom in New York City in the civil lawsuit filed by Rapp. Spacey didn’t respond to reporters as he left the courthouse talking on his mobile phone.
Spacey’s lawyers appeared to be aware of the U.K. criminal case — they mentioned it briefly in court — but also didn’t comment on the new U.K. charges as they left the building.
Another criminal case brought against Spacey, an indecent assault and battery charge stemming from the alleged groping of an 18-year-old man at a Nantucket resort, was dismissed by Massachusetts prosecutors in 2019.
