Kevin Spacey makes court appearance

Former House of Cards star Kevin Spacey appeared at a Massachusetts courthouse on Monday, surprising media given he was not required to attend the hearing in the case accusing him of groping a young man at a bar in 2016.

Spacey, 59, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of indecent assault and battery, faces up to 2½ years in jail if convicted.

It is the only criminal case that has been brought against him since his career fell apart amid allegations in 2017.

Former Boston TV anchor Heather Unruh said Spacey got her son drunk and then sexually assaulted him at a bar on a resort island off Cape Cod.

Spacey’s lawyers have called the allegations “patently false” and accused the man of lying in the hopes of making money in a civil case. They argued that the two engaged in nothing more than “consensual flirtation” and questioned why, according to the man’s story, he did not object or try to move away if he was being assaulted.

Spacey’s attorney urged the court to order prosecutors to hand over a “complete and unaltered” forensic copy of the accuser’s cellphone, saying newly produced evidence confirms he “deleted exculpatory text messages and provided falsified screenshots of his conversation from the night in question to law enforcement.”

Judge Thomas Barrett has ordered the Club Car bar to hand over any surveillance footage taken between 5 p.m. July 7, 2016, and 3 a.m. July 8, 2016.

Source: USA Today