Judge denies Kevin Spacey's request to skip hearing in sexual assault case
Kevin Spacey must turn up at a forthcoming court hearing in Massachusetts, a judge ruled on Monday, after the actor requested that he be allowed to avoid appearing in person when he faces criminal charges that he sexually assaulted an 18-year-old man at a bar in 2016.
Spacey had submitted a statement to Nantucket district court that his presence at a hearing scheduled for 7 January, on accusations that he groped a young man at a local restaurant and bar, would “amplify the negative publicity already generated in connection with this case”.
The actor said in documents received by the court earlier on Monday that he is pleading not guilty and believes he should be excused from appearing at the forthcoming arraignment, the term that describes the process in the US of calling someone before a court to answer a criminal charge.
Defendants are required to appear for arraignments unless they are granted a waiver by a judge, according to Massachusetts court officials, the Boston Globe reported. Prosecutors asked the judge in the case to deny Spacey’s request, and on Monday afternoon district Judge Thomas Barrett issued his decision that Spacey must appear for the hearing.
The 59-year-old Oscar-winning actor is charged with felony indecent assault and battery.
He will now be obliged to travel to the court on remote Nantucket Island, east of Martha’s Vineyard, off the Cape Cod coast of Massachusetts.
The case became public after Heather Unruh, a former TV news anchor in Boston, came forward and said that Spacey assaulted her teenage son.
Spacey was dropped from the Netflix series House of Cards and at least one movie after allegations he sexually assaulted or harassed multiple men.
He has stayed mainly out of the public eye since, but posted a video to his Twitter account last week where he speaks in the style of his House of Cards character Frank Underwood, saying: “I’m certainly not going to pay the price for the thing I didn’t do.”
A newly-released affidavit on Monday revealed Spacey’s request to skip his arraignment and also that he plans to plead not guilty.