Kevin Spacey To Be Criminally Charged In Alleged Sexual Assault At Nantucket Bar
NANTUCKET (CBS) -- Actor Kevin Spacey is facing a criminal complaint for the alleged sexual assault of a teenager on Nantucket in 2016.
"On December 20, 2018 following a public show cause hearing at Nantucket District Court, Clerk Magistrate Brian Kearney issued a criminal complaint of indecent assault and battery against Kevin S. Fowler, also known as Kevin Spacey," Cape and Island District Attorney Michael O'Keefe said in a statement Monday. "The incident is alleged to have occurred on or about July 7, 2016 at a local restaurant."
Spacey is due in court for a Jan. 7 arraignment at Nantucket District Court.
The allegation against Spacey, who faces several accusations of inappropriate sexual conduct, involves the then-teenage son of former Boston TV news anchor Heather Unruh.
"I'm pleased that the case is moving forward in the judicial system." Unruh told The Boston Globe.
"The complainant has shown a tremendous amount of courage in coming forward," attorney Mitchell Garabedian said in a statement to WBZ-TV. "Let the facts be presented, the relevant law applied and a just and fair verdict rendered."
In a news conference last year, Unruh detailed the alleged assault that she said took place at the Club Car restaurant.
"To Kevin Spacey, I want to say this – shame on you for what you did to my son," Unruh told reporters.
Heather Unruh's 2017 Allegations Against Kevin Spacey
Fighting back tears, she said her son was a "star-struck, straight, 18-year-old young man, who had no idea that the famous actor was an alleged sexual predator or that he was about to become his next victim."
Unruh claimed Spacey bought her son several drinks and eventually stuck his hand in her son's pants and grabbed his genitals without consent in the crowded, dimly lit club. "This was completely unexpected," Unruh said, adding that her son panicked and froze.
When Spacey went to the men's room, Unruh said a "concerned woman" approached her son and asked him if he was okay. "She told him to run," Unruh said and her son left the restaurant and ran to his grandmother's home. He woke his sister and the two of them called their mother, who came to Nantucket the next day.
"It harmed him and it cannot be undone," Unruh said.
Shortly after The Globe broke the news about the criminal complaint, Kevin Spacey tweeted for the first time in more than a year. In the video Spacey shared, he appears in character as Frank Underwood from "House Of Cards" - the Netflix show he was fired from following the numerous allegations.
"Some believed everything and have just been waiting with bated breath to hear me confess it all," he said. "They're just dying to have me declare that everything said is true and that I got what I deserved."
In the video, Spacey does not directly mention the real-world allegations made against him, but asks viewers if they "rushed to judgement without facts."
"Despite all the poppycock, the animosity, the headlines, the impeachment without a trial, despite everything, despite even my own death, I feel surprisingly good," Spacey said, referencing the fact that his character was killed off following his firing. "And my confidence grows each day that soon enough you will know the full truth."
Unruh said her son didn't report the incident to police at the time because of "embarrassment and fear," but she did call the sheriff on Nantucket and "we had a long conversation so that he knew about the incident and he very much wanted my son to come forward and report it."
"I definitely think he deserves to go to prison," Unruh said of Spacey. "He should go to prison."
Over the summer, CBS News reported that British police were investigating six claims of sexual assault or assault by Spacey. Harry Dreyfuss, the son of actor Richard Dreyfuss, has accused Spacey of groping him when he was 18 years old. Actor Anthony Rapp has also alleged that Spacey acted inappropriately with him when he was 14 years old.
