The British Justice accuses him of four charges for alleged crimes committed between 2005 and 2013
Kevin Spacey in a courtroom in Nantucket, Massachusetts, USA. January 7, 2019. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
The British government is preparing a formal request that it will send to the United States to request the extradition of actor Kevin Spacey, accused of sexually assaulting four men, according to sources from the British newspaper The Guardian.
The process will be activated if the actor does not agree to travel to the United Kingdom voluntarily to undergo on trial, explained the source. If he does not, the International Crime Directorate of the British Home Office will request his extradition so that he is arrested in the United States and handed over to the United Kingdom.
Spacey, 62, met last Thursday that the British Crown Prosecution Service has authorized the indictment for four crimes of sexual assault against three men between 2005 and 2013 in London and Gloucestershire after an investigation by Scotland Yard.
The extradition process could take months, since the US Department of Justice must decide if there is a “probable cause” of crime. Afterwards, an arrest warrant would be issued and a process would be initiated that in any case can be appealed and that would also limit the crimes of which he can be accused.
Two charges concern sexual assaults in March 2005 in London against one of the complainants. Another sexual assault involved a second complainant in August 2008, also engaging in penetrative sexual activity without his consent. The actor is accused of a fourth sexual assault on a third complainant in April 2013 in Gloucestershire, in the southwest of England.
The alleged crimes were committed when the actor ran one of London’s most historic theatres, the Old Vic.
Kevin Spacey (Reuters)
London’s Old Vic theatre, where Spacey was artistic director from 2004 to 2015, apologized after revealing that it had received up to twenty complaints against the actor for inappropriate behaviour.
Spacey, star of movies like “American Beauty” and the two-Oscar-winning series “House of Cards,” was the subject of several complaints in the United States for sexual harassment and assault in 2017.
The wave of accusations that ended his career happened in the wake of the rise of the #MeToo movement, which was born from the case of the almighty American film producer Harvey Weinstein, who was sentenced to 23 years in prison in 2020.
Actor Anthony Rapp, whose credits include the Broadway musical “Rent” and its film adaptation as well as television’s “Star Trek: Discovery,” said Spacey molested him when he was 14 at a party in the 1980s.
Spacey released a statement in response saying he did not recall the encounter, but apologized.
In November of last year, Spacey was notified that he will have to pay the studio behind “House of Cards” more than $30 million in losses resulting from his firing for sexual misconduct.
A document filed in Superior Court of Los Angeles seeking a judge’s approval of the ruling says arbitrators found Spacey violated the professional behavior clause in his contract by “engaging in certain conduct in connection with various members of the team in each of the five seasons he starred in and was a producer House of Cards executive.”