adminLONDON. – A TEARFUL Kevin Spacey said he was “humbled” after a jury in a London court found him not guilty yesterday of carrying out multiple sex assaults on four men.
After more than 12 hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted the Oscar-winning U.S. actor of nine charges which he was accused of committing between 2004 and 2013 at a time when he was working at London’s Old Vic theatre.
Spacey, who was also celebrating his 64th birthday yesterday, began to cry and mouthed “thank you” to the nine men and three woman jurors, before wiping away tears with a tissue.
After he was released from the dock, he shook hands with his lawyers before leaving the court room via a side door.
The Hollywood star spoke with five of the jurors in the lobby of Southwark Crown Court, before emerging from the building to address a phalanx of journalists and photographers.
“I imagine that many of you can understand that there’s a lot for me to process after what has just happened today,” he said. “I am humbled by the outcome today.”
He also said he was “enormously grateful to the jury for having taken the time to examine all of the evidence and all of the facts carefully before they reached their decision”.
Spacey was swarmed by cameras as he then walked to a waiting taxi, as some members of the public clapped and wished him happy birthday and one woman shouted: “We love you, Kevin.”
During the four-week trial, prosecutors described the actor as a “sexual bully” who had aggressively groped three of the men and performed oral sex on the fourth while he had passed out in the Hollywood star’s London apartment. – Reuters
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter