Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Spacey’s legal team enters not guilty plea in sexual assault case
Lawyers for Kevin Spacey entered a not guilty plea on his behalf in Massachusetts court Monday on charges he groped an 18-year-old busboy in 2016.
The disgraced actor was arraigned on a charge of felony indecent assault and battery during a hearing at Nantucket District Court. The judge set another hearing for March 4. Spacey must stay away from his accuser and his accuser’s family, the judge also ordered.
The judge granted a request by Spacey’s lawyers to preserve the victim’s cellphone data from the six months following the alleged assault. Spacey’s attorney Alan Jackson said there is data that is “likely exculpatory” for Spacey.
The hearing comes more than a year after a former Boston TV anchor accused the former “House of Cards” star of sexually assaulting her son, then 18, in the crowded bar at the Club Car, where the teen worked as a busboy.
If convicted, Spacey faces as long as five years in prison. Spacey had said he would plead not guilty.
It’s the first criminal case brought against Spacey, 59, since other allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced against him in 2017.
After the charge was announced last month, Spacey released a video in the voice of Frank Underwood, his character on Netflix’s “House of Cards,” in which he said, “I’m certainly not going to pay the price for the thing I didn’t do.”