Two weeks ago, Anthony Rapp accused Kevin Spacey of making a sexual advance on him in 1986 (when Rapp was 14 years old). Since then, the accusations have rolled in, including one from former Boston TV news anchor Heather Unruh, who accused Spacey of sexually assaulting her then-18-year-old son in a Nantucket restaurant in 2016. Now, the Boston Globe reports that a Massachusetts district attorney will meet with the alleged victim soon:
District Attorney Michael O’Keefe said the meeting will occur soon and said he is interested in “everything that’s relevant and material” to the alleged assault. At a news conference Wednesday, Unruh said Spacey plied her 18-year-old son with alcohol, then thrust his hand inside the young man’s pants and grabbed his genitals.
The investigation “will proceed from there after we have a chance to speak with the person who made the allegation,” O’Keefe said.
The victim’s attorney, Mitchell Garabedian, is currently digging into Spacey’s other interactions on Nantucket, where he’s said to be a regular fixture. Garabedian has also handled hundreds of cases for victims of clergy sexual abuse, and since Unruh’s case is a relatively fresh one, there’s no question of the case being too old to bring charges if there’s enough evidence to do so.
This news arrives alongside word that the LA District Attorney’s office is creating a special task force of veteran prosecutors to dig through the mountains of sexual assault allegations against powerful Hollywood figures. These accusations have arrived within the past month amid the continuing claims against Harvey Weinstein (who may soon be indicted in New York). While this speaks to the seriousness with which the accusations are being treated, it also ensures that the cases will be treated uniformly, although many cases will be hard to prove and/or sit outside the statute of limitations for sexual assault cases.
(Via Boston Globe & LA Times)