A New York jury on Thursday found actor Kevin Spacey not responsible for battery on charges that he picked up actor Anthony Rapp and allegedly laid on top of him in a bed after a party in 1986. 

After roughly an hour of deliberation, the jury decided that Rapp had not established that Spacey had “touched a sexual or intimate part” of Rapp.

The case was officially dismissed by Judge Lewis Kaplan. Spacey left the court without engaging with reporters.

Rapp, well known for his appearance in Star Trek: Discovery, claimed that Spacey, who was 26 at the time, had brought him to his Manhattan home where, without Rapp’s consent, 14 at the time, he scooped him up, placed him down on his bed, grabbed his buttocks, and crushed his groin into his body.

Who is Anthony Rapp? 

Anthony Rapp was born in Chicago, Illinois in the United States on October 26, 1971. His parents, father Douglas Rapp and mother Mary Lee, divorced three years after he was born. Rapp’s mother, a trained nurse, raised him. Rapp has an elder brother, Adam Rapp, who is a filmmaker, novelist and playwright. 

Anthony Rapp was initiated into acting through community theatre. He did the greater part of his schooling at Joliet West High School. He attended theatre camp at Interlochen Arts Camp. After graduating high school, Rapp went to study film at New York University, but dropped out after a semester. 

In 1981, Anthony Rapp performed The Little Prince and the Aviator on Broadway. A musical based on Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s novel The Little Prince, the show closed during previews. Rapp made his screen debut with Adventures in Babysitting. 

Some of Rapp’s notable performances are in Dazed and Confused, A Beautiful Mind, School Ties, Road Trip, Six Degrees of Separation, An American Family, Danny Roane: First Time Director, and You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. 

Anthony Rapp was among the first openly gay men on Broadway. He came out to his mother as gay at the age of 18. During an interview in 1997, Rapp said, “I don’t want to get into labels, but I’ve never labelled myself except to say I am queer.” 

“The thing that’s been most important to me to be out about is that I have been in loving relationships with men…I haven’t said ‘I am gay.” Because the truth is that I’ve also been in love with women, although the truth is I do think I’m primarily homosexual.”

In a 2018 interview with Buzzfeed, Rapp levelled allegations of sexual abuse against actor Kevin Spacey. He said that in 1986, when he was 14 years old and Spacey 26, the actor had made an unwanted sexual advance towards him. After the interview emerged, Spacey wrote on Twitter that he did not remember the encounter and offered his “sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behaviour.”