Fatal blow to Kevin Spacey appeal as judge orders $45 million payout
The Hollywood star facing sex assault charges suffered a massive defeat in his battle against Netflix’s House of Cards.
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Kevin Spacey was dealt a losing hand in his appeal against the House of Cards.
The Hollywood movie star was ordered to pay $45 million in damages to the production company that fired him from the Netflix drama after he was accused of sexual harassment.
Spacey’s appeal against arbitration was dismissed just weeks after he appeared in a British court on charges of sexually assaulting three men. Spacey denies the allegations and any claims of wrongdoing.
The House of Cards’ sixth season was abruptly reworked after the production company, MRC, fired Spacey from the lead role in the wake of the #MeToo-era claims.
In 2020, Spacey was ordered to compensate the company for its losses after arbitration found he was in breach of his contract because of the alleged behaviour.
Spacey’s lawyers had argued that the arbitrator exceeded the scope of his powers by considering certain evidence in deciding damages.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mel Red Recana, however, confirmed the award of USD $31 million in damages and expenses (AUD$45 million).
The judge said that even if the matter was not so clear-cut, the arbitrator’s award would stand.
“Here, (Spacey) fails to demonstrate that this is even a close case,” Recana wrote in his 14-page ruling.
The wave of accusations that halted the 63-year-old’s illustrious career coincided with the rise of the #MeToo movement against abuse, sparked by the case of the all-powerful Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
Two-time Oscar winner Spacey had starred as unscrupulous US politician Frank Underwood in five seasons of “House of Cards” until the allegations of sexual harassment against co-workers were made public in the media.
MRC had to rewrite the script excluding Underwood, the main character of the series, and redesign the sixth season, chopping it from 13 to eight episodes.
Two-time Oscar-winner Spacey last month pleaded not guilty at London’s Old Bailey court to four charges of sexual assault against three men, in cases dating back almost two decades.
Spacey had travelled from his home in the United States to appear voluntarily at the British court.
At an earlier hearing, lawyer Patrick Gibbs told the court his client “strenuously denies any and all criminality in this case.”
“He needs to answer these charges if he is to proceed with his life,” Gibbs added at the time.
Spacey is fighting sex assault charges on both sides of the Atlantic; in New York City civil suit filed by actor Anthony Rapp, and in the UK over four counts of alleged sexual assault against three men.
Rapp accuses Spacey of groping his buttocks in 1986, when he was aged 14-years-old. Rapp alleged that Spacey “lifted him up” and “grazed” his buttocks over his clothing, before allegedly placing him on a bed and briefly placing his own “clothed body partially beside and across” his body. Rapp claims he “wriggled out” and left, according to the court documents obtained by Fox News.
Spacey’s defence lawyers have said in a previous filing that the allegations are “false and never occurred”.
The UK charges, meanwhile, relate to two alleged incidents in London in 2005, another two and 2008, and a further incident in Gloucestershire, western England, in 2013.
The alleged victim of the 2005 incidents is now in his 40s, while the two men allegedly involved in the 2008 and 2013 incidents are now in their 30s, London’s Metropolitan Police season said.
The allegations emerged following the #MeToo movement, prompting an investigation by the Metropolitan Police and a review by London’s The Old Vic Theatre of Spacey’s time as artistic director between 2004 and 2015.
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Originally published as Fatal blow to Kevin Spacey appeal as judge orders $45 million payout
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