Kevin Spacey acquitted of sexual harassment and abuse charges between 2001 and 2013.
A verdict, welcomed by the actor in tears, destined to put an end to a second crucial chapter of the MeToo cyclone that rained down on him starting in 2017, after a first sentence of not guilty already pronounced months ago at home, in the USA.
The outcome of the trial came as a lifeline for the 63-year-old two-time Oscar winner - American Beauty and The Usual Suspects -, in search of a way out of the professional impasse suffered in Hollywood and beyond in recent years in the wake of the shadows cast over his reputation.
After three half days and more than 13 hours of effective deliberation by the 12 members of the popular jury (nine men and three women) gathered in front of the professional judge Mark Wall at London's Southwark Crown Court, the American actor and director was cleared from all nine of the surviving charges (of the 12 originally presented by the police) in a trial that began on June 28.
The disputed charges, with respect to which Spacey has always claimed to be legally innocent, concerned complaints collected in two tranches by Scotland Yard: first on episodes of alleged sexual assault against a young aspiring actor between 2001 and 2004; then for other alleged abuses evoked more recently by three men (aged approximately between 20 and 30 at the time of the events) with reference to the period 2005-2013.
Lies, or at best misunderstandings, was Spacey's defense, who admitted that he had used alcohol and drugs and that he was a "promiscuous" individual, sexually unscrupulous, inclined to "flirt", but only in the context of courtships and "consensual" interactions. Behaviors that may be questionable at times. And yet not crimes, as the London jury finally put it in black and white today.
(Unioneonline/D)
