Actor Kevin Spacey appeared at a Nantucket District Courthouse today to enter a not-guilty plea for an alleged 2016 sexual assault on an 18-year-old busboy at an island bar.
The case made national news because of the defendant’s obvious celebrity status and the alleged crime taking place in the face of the me-too movement. Spacey came out as a gay man shortly after the case went public.
According to the Boston Globe:
Spacey, whose legal name is Kevin S. Fowler, was ordered released on personal recognizance by Judge Thomas S. Barrett at the 10-minute hearing, which was held shortly after the actor arrived at the courthouse around 10:45 a.m., pushing his way past a throng of reporters and photographers.
Spacey, who arrived wearing a grey suit, a polka-dot tie and a printed shirt, was calm and had a small smile on his face as he sat in the far end of the front row with his lawyers, Julianne Balliro and Alan Jackson.
He was quiet as his lawyers and the prosecutors debated what evidence could be preserved in the small courtroom crowded with some 40 people from the media along with the curious, including three friends from Barnstable who took the ferry over so they could be on hand. …
Spacey faces a charge of indecent assault and battery on a person 14 and older.
The judge set a further hearing in the case for March 4 at 11 a.m. Spacey will not have to appear at that hearing, though he must be available by telephone, if needed, the judge said.
The only request made by prosecutors from Cape and Island District Attorney Michael O’Keefe’s office during the proceeding was that Barrett order Spacey to stay away from the alleged victim and his family, who is the son of former Boston television anchor Heather Unruh. The judge issued the order.
