A New York court has rejected a sexual assault complaint filed against actor Kevin Spacey.
Anthony Rapp filed the lawsuit, alleging that the actor illegally assaulted him when he was 14 years old at a party in 1986.
Rapp, now 50 and also an actor, filed the lawsuit in September 2020, asking for around $40 million in damages.
Spacey, an Oscar winner, has refuted the allegations.
In the UK, he faces five counts of sexual assault, to which he has pleaded not guilty. The study is set to start in June 2023.
Following a three-week civil trial in a Manhattan federal court, a jury determined on Thursday that Rapp had failed to substantiate his claim that Spacey had made an unwelcome sexual approach.
Spacey allegedly hugged his attorneys before leaving the courtroom after deliberations lasted more than an hour and the judge handed out the result.
Rapp claims that he met Mr Spacey at a party at his Manhattan apartment when he was approximately 26 or 27 years old.
In October 2017 , Rapp said that Spacey had taken him up, placed him on a bed, and lay partially on top of him.
Spacey testified in his own defense in the third week of his trial, saying he was astonished when Rapp made his claims public five years ago.
“I didn’t know how this could possibly be true,” the 63-year-old said, adding he would not have been sexually interested in Mr Rapp as he was underage.
Rapp’s lawyer, Richard Steigman, said that Spacey’s memory was faulty and that his recollection had changed.
According to Spacey’s lawyer Jennifer Keller, Rapp’s claim is a lie, and he is “getting more attention in this trial than he has in his entire acting life”.
Multiple sexual misconduct charges destroyed the Hollywood star’s stage career. He was fired from Netflix’s political drama House of Cards, and Christopher Plummer took him as J. Paul Getty in All the Money in the World.
In August, a court determined that Spacey must pay $31 million to the House of Cards producers for the expenditures spent after he was fired from the program.
Spacey earned Academy Awards for his roles in American Beauty and The Usual Suspects.
In July, he pleaded not guilty in London to allegations of sexually abusing three men more than a decade ago.
During the New York trial, he was questioned about Rapp’s claim that he was a “fraud” for not coming out as homosexual sooner. Spacey stated that he had always kept his personal life, particularly his boyhood, private since his father harbored racist and homophobic beliefs.