Or to be more accurate, the Nantucket case was one woman’s crusade against a famous man who supposedly allegedly harmed her son in a sexual way.
Prosecutors announced Wednesday, July 17, 2019 afternoon that they will be dropping charges against Kevin Spacey, who was accused of groping an 18-year-old man at a Nantucket bar in 2016.
The reason why you are reading this is because [I wrote it] after the case was dismissed with prejudice I woke up to at least two – there are more, but I didn’t read all of them- articles about how Kevin Spacey wasn’t exonerated regardless of the DA’s decision.
In Variety, Caroline Framke wrote:
“Just because the charges were dropped, however, doesn’t mean that many won’t (or shouldn’t) be wary of working with him again.”
[…]
“Sexual assault cases are so rarely taken seriously at the time the crime is allegedly committed that sometimes, telling the story on their own terms is all a survivor can do. Anyone who believes in that tried and true fact will just believe that Spacey has escaped tangible consequences for abusing his power once again.”
In the Atlantic, Spencer Kornhaber wrote:
“’Help me’.
Among the text messages sent by a then–18-year-old busboy on the night in 2016 when he alleges Kevin Spacey sexually assaulted him, that one sentiment—a plea for rescue—recurred at least five times.”
[…]
“The truth is that the case, and the dozens of other accusations against Spacey, demonstrate why #MeToo is not only—or even primarily—a courtroom battle.”
If you have read any of my blog entries, you know I strongly support the innocent until proven guilty doctrine as a fundamental legal and human right. There are many discussions taking place in academia on whether the presumption of innocence is a substantive human right, and thus not merely a procedural one, and finds them wanting, according to Richard L. Lippke’s Taming the Presumption of Innocence.
Nothing in regards to the Presumption of Innocence and the Media though, which is my main issue.
In this entry, I’m going to show step by step that alleged victims telling their story in their own terms means they can easily hide elements of the story that take away their victimhood. Or, to not generalise as «journalists» do these days, I will do so only for this case and this case alone how Spacey hasn’t «escaped tangible consequences for abusing his power once again», but because there was no case to begin with. Or that’s the conclusion I ended up with.
Maybe I was wrong.
I’m writing this because the truth is the (Nantucket) case against Spacey demonstrated why metoo should have been only a courtroom battle and not lynching in social media. If I decide to equate the cases against Spacey to this one, I wonder in what kind of conclusion I’m going to end up.
When Spencer Kornhaber writes in the Atlantic:
“What is clear is that the cultural and economic #MeToo reckoning doesn’t always line up with the legal one. One court victory does not mean Spacey, or anyone else with a stack of allegations that they used their power to harass others, is suddenly available as a lead actor again. It does not mean the question is closed on how to help people put in agonizing positions by the appetites of famous men.”
He states clearly that courts don’t matter, especially as he clearly believes that the accusation in Nantucket is true and apparently so should we. The media have depicted the case in such a way that the general public views the suspect as guilty and we shouldn’t change that opinion despite the court’s decision.
Before the dismissal I hadn’t followed the case closely, only read quickly through information given, avoided Ms. Unruh’s social media and knew the absolutely necessary that was going on. Afterwards, I decided to do a more thorough research of the case and this is what I ended up with.
Kevin Spacey faced a charge of felony sexual assault as was announced by the D.A. of the Sape and Islands, Mass.. A public show-cause hearing was held for the case on December 20, 2018 where Clerk Magistrate Ryan Kearney issued a criminal complaint for the charge “against Kevin S. Fowler, also known as Kevin Spacey».
Kevin Spacey pleaded not guilty to a charge of felony indecent assault and battery.
But, how did all begin?
Grab a glass of ice tea (or hot, if it’s winter) and a plate of biscuits and let’s begin:
On October 5, 2017 in an article published by The New York Times, Harvey Weinstein was accused by several women, including the actresses Rose McGowan and Ashley Judd, of sexual harassment and misconduct spanning three decades.
Alyssa Milano encouraged spreading the hashtag #MeToo, to attempt to draw attention to sexual assault and harassment. The phrase «Me too» was tweeted by Milano around noon on October 15, 2017, and had been used more than 200,000 times by the end of the day, and tweeted more than 500,000 times by October 16, 2017.
In this climate, resurfaced accusations against Kevin Spacey. The previous time/s any brave™ soul had read the exact same accusations in gawker or datalounge and shared them in social media, no matter how viral it went, media remained silent, victims remained silent as well.
It wasn’t their time yet. (Yes, I’m calling them opportunists.)
On October 13, 2017, Heather Unruh tweeted for the first time about Kevin Spacey.
This is how we do it these days. We accuse people in social media.
And fellow colleagues from buzzfeed ask “to talk with us about it.”. We refuse because “in good time”.
So, she makes this accusation on October 13, 2017 in twitter and I’m not certain if anyone else other than Mr. Vary asked for an interview in the matter.
She refused to give an interview to him. So he had to address his friend, Mr. Rapp, for an exclusive about Mr. Spacey. To be perfectly honest, I have no idea which poor soul was in Ira’s mind, for once. I’m sure he sent him to jail, as it was.
https://web.archive.org/web/20161012043552/https://twitter.com/ira Scroll down, you’ll find what I mean.
Back to Ms. Unruh’s twitter crusade.
“Gay is irrelevant”. Remember this.
Ms. Framke from Variety claimed in her article that “Spacey tried to get ahead of the damage by claiming that the accusations against him were rooted in homophobia, subsequently coming out himself as gay…”
It never happened. It’s like when President Trump said that the Continental Army «took over the airports» from the British during the American Revolutionary War in his Fourth of July speech. Homophobia has never been used by Mr. Spacey. Mr. Spacey has actually never defended himself against the accusations in any other place than in court. He hasn’t given any interviews. He published a statement in his social media accounts and released a short video in which I don’t think he used the word homophobia.
But words remain in people’s minds and Ms. Framke knows it.
Ms. Unruh, the accuser’s mother, doesn’t care about Mr. Spacey’s homosexuality, it’s not about him being gay, it’s about him being a “predator” and it’s about him “being stopped” and “time for a reality check in Hollywood”.
Predator is the new trendy word. When you have a predator, everyone else is a potential prey. Predator is being used a lot in the #metoo era because it intensifies the principle that the alleged victims have no agency. It is not a legal term for the accused. It is a term for the media. It removes the Presumption of Innocence.
In the meantime, she doesn’t know if the alleged (at the time) victim wants to do anything with his story, but that doesn’t stop her from naming Kevin Spacey.
What if her son didn’t want the story to become the national gossip of the day? “It’s not her story!” But, for some reason, she’s the one telling it.
But hey! Twitter! What are you doing? Why don’t people care enough about her story? Newsflash, it was because Vary published Rapp’s heartbreaking story of being assaulted by Spacey 31 years previously.
This is where I have to mention that both Ms. Unruh and Mr. Rapp are blocked from my account because at the time I didn’t want to question their stories. It would be insensitive. It meant that for my own peace of mind, I made the choice to not know what they were sharing in social media. And this is the reason as to why you can’t see Mr. Rapp explaining his reasons for sharing his story in buzzfeed.
- Saving other young people from predator’s clutches three decades later.
Ms. Unruh claims her “loved one will speak when ready”. If I was mean-spirited I’d add she’s a bit peeved at her loved one not speaking before Rapp. Her reach is lower, after all. How did that happen?
Ms. Unruh applauds the courage of “Actor’ Antony Rapp. Actor is unnecessary in her applause tweet, in my humble opinion, but what do I know? Seriously, actor?
Anyway, since we are at it, let’s see the Police Complaint of Ms. Unruh son’s.
«Will had previously reported the assault via telephone to Nantucket Police Officer Kelly on October 31, 2016.»
Will is Ms. Unruh’s son, the «loved one», the alleged victim at the time. And that’s a whole year before the twitter saga takes place.
But wait!
[….] Spacey’s accuser confirmed under questioning from the actor’s lead defence attorney that he did not report the alleged assault to police for 15 months, rather than the three months prosecutors have been contending since filing charges against the actor in January.
The lead investigator in the case also testified under questioning from Spacey’s defence attorney that the one-year difference was the result of a «typo.»
[source]
2016 was a typo, according to the lead investigator.
Will himself testified he reported to police 15 months after the alleged assault. July 2016 plus 15 months means October 2017. And if we are to believe the lead investigator and 2016 was the only typo (I have the urge to add another ‘™’ here) then Will reported the assault to the Nantucket Police Officer Kelly on October 31, 2017. A day after Rapp accused Spacey for whatever it was he accused him, Ms. Unruh’s «loved one» was ready to talk.
I bet you anything you want Ms. Unruh was peeved indeed.
A spokeswoman for the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s office acknowledged the error but declined to respond further to a request for comment from ABC News. She also declined to say whether earlier court filings would be amended to reflect the accurate date of the original report — October 31, 2017.
It seems police officers, DA and officials in general were willing to even «typo» their support towards the Unruh/Little family.
Now don’t get me wrong, it might have been that the alleged victim found the strength to report after Rapp made his own story known. It could be. And there was also an innocent typo there.
However, she seems determined to bring the «predator» down using other people’s shared in social media experiences, experiences that I might add that may not be true, that may be exaggerated, that she has no ways to corroborate, that basically are supported by no evidence whatsoever.
But that’s the point of #metoo isn’t it? Believe every accuser. That’s what Mr. Kornhaber writes in the Atlantic article.
Solidarity is good. It gives everyone a sense of belonging. What I don’t know though is how you can identify with someone if you don’t know if they tell the truth or not; if you are not certain if instead of being supported you’re being used. Having your experience being used for someone’s profit is how I see celebrity #metoo. And I may be unfair.
It is my steadfast belief that victims don’t give a damn about what strangers think about them in social media. It’s fear above all that makes them remain silent. And I have a shimmering disgust towards people who use those victims to push their own agenda by presenting a different attitude in social media and a whole different behaviour in regards to legal procedures.
I will disregard the fact she’s been asking to have her twitter verified using this case, and I will also disregard the fact that saying this is why victims staying silent to questions her son would have been asked in the court as well in a way of shaming and guilt-tripping the person who contacted her, but I will not disregard this
Needless to say, no! Ms. Unruh didn’t give the press conference as an attempt to get her name out there.
She just appeared in tv shows and gave a press conference (A PRESS CONFERENCE) about her son’s experience.
Heather Unruh, who worked at WCVB until 2016, described an alleged incident involving Spacey and her son during an emotional press conference at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Boston. Unruh was joined by attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who is best known for representing victims of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, and her daughter, Kyla.
Unruh said that Spacey bought “drink after drink after drink” for her underage and “starstruck” son at The Club Car restaurant. Once her son was drunk, Spacey stuck his hand inside her son’s pants and grabbed his genitals, she said. The teen was only “momentarily successful” in shifting his body to avoid Spacey’s hand, she said, and “the violation continued.”
“I want to make it clear: This was a criminal act,” Unruh said.
Unruh said that Spacey bought “drink after drink after drink” for her underage and “starstruck” son at The Club Car restaurant.
Will, while 18 at the time, told Spacey he was 23. Exactly because at 18 he wasn’t underage, maybe taking responsibility for lying about his age isn’t a bad thing. Kevin Spacey didn’t know his age. We don’t know what he would have done if he did.
It’s as simple as that.
“My son panicked,” she said. “He froze.”
From her son’s police report:
I assume he says the truth, OK? At this point, I’m not questioning his credibility.
So, after lying about his age, and getting serviced drink after drink (and according to everybody, he’s known as a drinker), when Spacey “assaults” him, he “knows he’s eighteen, and “he knows he shouldn’t be drinking at his work.”
Who doesn’t know all that? Kevin Spacey.
And while his mother says he panicked and froze, he texts his girlfriend, he snapchats, he sends her (and possibly more people in a group chat) a video (that showed nothing btw), but isn’t saying no to Spacey. Despite being drunk, he can think clearly and despite being frozen, he can use his phone. And Spacey lets him do it, as well.
In November 14, 2017 Carolyn Hart wrote in HuffPost
“It is totally unfair for people to shame the victims of sexual abuse, or their support systems, ugly accusers hide behind their keyboards and are almost always faceless, only showing profile images of cats or the like. People need to use their time more wisely, rather than reacting to matters they know nothing about and passing down their distasteful and unwarranted judgments.
All I know is it takes incredible strength and courage to come forward and publicly announce to the world about sexual abuse and no one should ever feel ashamed. I am proud of Heather, her son and all those strong enough to make a stand and help towards ending what has been brushed under the rug for far too long.”
Ms. Unruh had all the support from media she would want to, Kevin Spacey was treated as a de facto guilty persona non grata and everyone who questioned the story or even the idea of a press conference was deemed a bully and a troll.
We didn’t need a trial. We had our victim and we had our predator, our rapist. Anyone having a different opinion was shaming victims.
My question is that when you claim that «people react to matters they know nothing about...» doesn’t it apply to those who unquestionably believe every accusation while not witnessing it? Doesn’t this work both ways?
If you have a predator and a prey, it doesn’t.
The problem is it is the exact same attitude the Variety/Atlantic authors exhibit even today.
Ms. Unruh continued her posting in twitter with irrelevant stories about Mr. Spacey.
«Sexual behaviour» becomes a what? Crime? Gabriel Byrne more or less said that Spacey had a sexual encounter with Bryan Singer’s adult boyfriend. Shocking, I know. What was going on in Hollywood? Don’t answer that. These things don’t happen in real life either. It’s criminal, I tell you. No person cheats! or has sex with a friend’s partner. Only Spacey. It’s further proof Ms. Unruh’s son’s story is true. I guess.
In her press conference, Unruh said her son reported the incident to Nantucket police the previous week (you know, October 2017, 15 months after the alleged at the time assault) and provided evidence to investigators. A police spokesman declined to comment, saying reports of sexual assault are confidential under state law.
Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe said prosecutors have contacted the lawyer for Unruh’s son but haven’t heard back.
“We don’t do things by press conference,” O’Keefe said.
In the meantime, two months later she was looking for the one witness in social media, with the support of Alyssa Milano, trying to encourage her to embrace the Silence Breakers. If you remember, TIME had made its person/s of the year the «Silence Breakers». Now why #timesup is added as a hashtag is beyond my skills of comprehension.
13th of April 2018 and she’s still looking the mystery witness who allegedly witnessed the incident. People who were there and testified didn’t see any assault.
And LA prosecutors were reviewing a 1992 sex assault accusation against Kevin Spacey. Now, I’m sorry if I say so but what kind of evidence can they find over a case that took place 26 years earlier? I’m not a fan of conspiracy theories, but something’s off here. The case was dropped because of statute of limitations. It could be total baloney, but we will never know because the official reason of dropping it was «statute of limitations» and no one can tell us if it happened or not.
Can you see my problem here?
Back to the case the accuser/alleged at the time victim «gave evidence to police».
Having no star witness, the family had a phone (that was lost somewhere along the way). Texts sent the night of the alleged assault were discovered by media, but Mr. Spacey’s lawyer (as well as reading comprehension) suggested that texts were deleted and the screenshots were manipulated.
«He’s gay» is repeated 5 times (there are more texts before this ones, see notes). Once wasn’t enough. But he «got the autographs, and a hell of a story!» And what assault is complete without the «victim» sending emojis while being attacked?
The phone went missing and the family’s lawyer Mich Garabedian said the family is “in the process of engaging a digital forensic expert to search for likely backups” of the phone, but that is expected to take “a few weeks.”
“We anticipate at that time being able to report not only about the search for the subject phone but also about other sources of the sought after information,”
It’s three years since the alleged assault (exactly 3 years) and 21 months since the report to the police and now the accusers have lost the evidence.
The defence started looking for the phone/evidence early:
Police’s notes (not overy credible because typos™) indicated the phone was returned to the alleged victim’s father, but the father said “he has no memory of receiving his son’s phone from the police.”
The Commonwealth said it took possession of the missing phone for about 20 days Nov.-Dec. 2018 to do a forensic download and then a state trooper gave it back to either Kevin Spacey’s accuser or to the accuser’s father.
Unruh and her son said they haven’t seen the phone since it was provided to police, nor has Garabedian or anyone in his office, the attorney wrote.
Trooper Donovan was «remiss and didn’t have them sign for receipt» when he gave the phone back.
Big deal!
All of that happened, while Ms. Unruh was active in twitter, certain about her accusations and their evidence and giving press conference.
The alleged victim “and his family have searched all the places where such a phone may have been stored. They have not found the phone.”
Judge Thomas S. Barrett granted Garabedian’s request to postpone Friday’s hearing and extended the deadline for the phone to be turned over until July 8.
If the phone wasn’t produced by then, the alleged victim, Unruh, and Garabedian had the obligation to appear in court on that date to testify about its “whereabouts and condition,” Barrett wrote in his ruling.
Barrett reminded the alleged victim, Unruh, and Garabedian about previous rulings the judge made calling for preservation of the phone’s contents from the date of the alleged assault (July 7, 2016) through Dec. 31, 2017.
From the pretrial:
As if it wasn’t enough that the phone was lost,
from Ms. Unruh twitter (and the tweet that is basically the reason of this blog entry)
they also deleted info that could make the alleged victim look bad.
It’s logical, isn’t? It’s logical to ask for the whole conversations taking place the night of the alleged assault and everything shared about the case the 20 months (at least) that followed it.
«All lies matter… were shocked by his lies about excessive drinking…. It’s a shameful message.» Unruh says in twitter in September 2018.
«Small lies matter.» But only for other people. Not every 21 year old has a fake id so they can drink, and if they do, and if it has nothing to do with the case, why would you deleted? If nothing had something to do with the case, why delete it?
Kevin Spacey’s alleged victim, a 21 year old young man now, finally testifies
The phone is missing, they have screenshots of the texts sent the night of the alleged assault, but half of the conversation is missing and he didn’t delete anything. Conversations are missing, but he didn’t delete anything. Theoritically, his mother might have told him to delete text messages, but if so, he would have acted on his own.
To summarise, they have no phone, the alleged video showing the assault was of a hand resting on someone’s shirt, the screenshots of the conversations were manipulated, there was info from the phone deleted.
Mitchell Garabedian is a lawyer known for representing sexual abuse victims in the Boston area during the Catholic priest sexual abuse scandal, including the cases against Paul Shanley, John Geoghan, and the Archdiocese of Boston. In August 2016, he represented seven of the 21 victims who settled sex abuse cases against 10 Irish Christian Brothers from Bergen Catholic High School in Oradell, New Jersey. The settlement was for $1.9 million.
Garabedian is not an unknown lawyer, he’s not inexperienced. He knows his job really well. Clearly something went wrong in this case.
I’m not a legal expert, but as little as I know, I believe the first advice to an accuser would be to stay away from social media and prepare their case for court. Unless court justice was never as high a priority as they claimed it was.
I’m not a legal expert, but prosecution should protect its evidence. But it was the defence who wanted to phone to be found.
In the meantime, and among all this exceptional professionalism, Unruh’s family decided to file a civil suit as well by the accuser against Spacey on June 26, 2019 in Nantucket Superior Court. The suit sought unspecified damages for “severe and permanent mental distress and emotional injuries.”
But that case was abruptly dismissed by the accuser less than two weeks later, on July 5, without any significant proceedings in the case other than the initial complaint.
The dismissal was “with prejudice,” meaning the accuser cannot refile the lawsuit.
Unruh testified last week that no settlement was paid.
(Yes, I know it’s in the screenshot above as well, but I wanted to give another source.)
I don’t know if it has any kind of meaning at this point, but that’s what she testified under oath.
But after this amazing preparation for the pre-trial and before Heather Unruh and Mr. Little testified, the accuser and alleged victim exercised his right to take the Fifth Amendment.
«But why?» Asked no one who followed this fiasco.
Kevin Spacey pleaded not guilty. And the alleged victim pleaded the fifth.
«Pleading the Fifth» is a colloquial term often used to invoke the self-incrimination clause when witnesses decline to answer questions where the answers might incriminate them. It is a right usually used by the defendant. This time it was taken by the accuser and lead witness.
I googled «accusers who took the fifth» to give an insight of how often it happens and there’s only this case. There are probably more. I think.
A week later the Prosecution dismissed the case.
After all this we can assume all we want…
Spacey remains under investigation for sexual misconduct allegations in the U.K. and in Los Angeles. Time will show what will happen with those. Who knows, maybe in the future will learn what happened with this one as well.
Was it a set up?
Was it an exaggeration?
Was it a manipulation of the metoo (and every other) movement?
Maybe it wasn’t.
But it definitely showed that these cases have to go to court. Maybe Kevin Spacey indeed hasn’t been vindicated (indeed he hasn’t!), but at the same time we learned more than what was shared in twitter, didn’t we?
It was either an extremely amateurish way of dealing with the case or they thought public opinion was enough to bring a favourable result. Honestly, I cannot understand how this case went this far. Typos, DA’s friendships and overly helpful police officers plus a metoo frenzied press is not the same as providing evidence to a court of justice. Even the alleged victim’s own testimony doesn’t provide a clear intent of assault by Kevin Spacey.
As far as I’m concerned I give all accusations the critical examination they deserve individually. I could easily liken them to this mess and find all of them lacking. I could consider all of them shameless attention seeking manipulation of the metoo movement.
I will not. Because it is not fair. Same as is it wasn’t to take the Nantucket case as de facto true. But some did it and still use it as evidence of Spacey “predatory” abusive ways.
I see people saying “now it’s proven Kevin Spacey is innocent, can he get back to movies?” or “Can they redone season 6 pf House of Cards?”.
For one thing, Spacey losing his job, getting fired from HoC, being replaced by Christopher Plummer in “All the Money in the World”, being ignored by the Old Vic celebrations, having his Tony Awards videos deleted from YouTube and his films being trashed over his alleged actions or anything that might have happened in the last 19 months against him shouldn’t have happened.
At the same time, there’s an open civil case, as I write this, the conclusion of which we do not know. And there are still the accusations in the United Kingdom being researched and the truth is we know nothing about them. There’s a long way ahead of him. It didn’t stop the media from declaring him guilty in all of them. As they did with the Nantucket case as well.
What the Nantucket case should have taught the media –but didn’t- is that any interaction between two people can be described as sinister as one party wants, but in order to be proven it was, they need more than media support, more than publicity, more than officials’ assistance, more than manipulation and tampering, loss even of evidence. They need a guilty part. And in that summer night three years ago in Nantucket, Kevin Spacey was proven he did nothing other than flirting with a young man who had lied about his age.
And true, it is against my morals and ethics, but it’s not criminal.
And in the end, it wasn’t Spacey who lost evidence, who didn’t have witnesses or who had to plead the Fifth.
Let’s see each case seperately and hope we get the truth instead of creating monsters, predators and prey.
A.K., Wednesday 24/07/2019
Notes:
- https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-accused-kevin-spacey-nantucket-sex-assault-testifies/story?id=64190443
- Find the press conference info: https://www.boston.com/culture/national-news/2017/11/08/kevin-spacey-to-be-accused-of-nantucket-sexual-assault-wednesday-morning
- Find the texts: https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/kevin-spacey-case-court-reveals-graphic-texts-between-accuser-his-girlfriend
- https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/06/19/key-cellphone-nantucket-sex-assault-case-against-kevin-spacey-missing-lawyer-says/2oXGx4duSdwB5cX1XZdDEL/story.html
- https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2019/07/08/kevin-spacey-nantucket-accuser-pleads-fifth/
- https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2019/01/07/kevin-spacey-pleads-not-guilty-sexual-assault-nantucket/
- https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2017/11/08/heather-unruh-kevin-spacey-sexual-assault-nantucket/
- @ChrisVillany44
- @ToddKazakiewich
Random Τhoughts of a Romantic Mind 