Actor Kevin Spacey has been charged in connection with an allegation that he sexually abused an 18-year-old boy at a Nantucket, Massachusetts, bar more than two years ago, the local district attorney said on Monday.
Spacey is scheduled to be arranged at Nantucket District Court on Jan. 7 on a single charge of indecent assault and battery on a person who is least 14 years old, according to court documents and a statement issued by Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe.
The charge against Spacey, 59, whose full name is Kevin Spacey Fowler, was filed after a Dec. 20 hearing, O'Keefe said. The name on the complaint was Kevin S. Fowler.
An attorney for Spacey did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The charge follows an allegation in November 2017 by Boston television journalist Heather Unruh that her 18-year-old son was sexually assaulted by Spacey in a late-night encounter at the Club Car restaurant and bar in Nantucket on July 7, 2016.
At a news conference in which she made the allegations regarding Spacey, Unruh said her "star struck" son falsely told the actor he was old enough to drink when he met him at the bar, and was plied with liquor. The legal age to drink alcoholic beverages in Massachusetts is 21 years old.
"Kevin Spacey bought him drink after drink after drink, and when my son was drunk, Spacey made his move and sexually assaulted him," Unruh said at the 2017 news conference.
The actor stuck his hands into the young man's pants and grabbed his genitals, she said, adding that it was "completely unexpected" and that her son tried unsuccessfully to shift his body away from Spacey.
"He did not report the crime at the time, and that was largely because of embarrassment and fear," she said.
Unruh said her son filed a report with police in Nantucket, a resort island off the southern coast of Massachusetts, shortly before her news conference.
Spacey also appears to have posted a bizarre three-minute YouTube video on Monday titled "Let's Be Frank," in which he speaks to the camera in the guise of his "House of Cards" character Frank Underwood, who was killed off in the sixth and final season of the show.
In the video, Spacey appears to address the decision to kill off his character on "House of Cards" following his firing last year. He also appears to reference the real-life allegations of sexual assault that surfaced last year, derailing his career. The video depicts Spacey in a kitchen setting wearing an apron bedecked with Santa Claus imagery.
"Despite all the poppycock, the animosity, the headlines, the impeachment without a trial. Despite even my own death, I feel surprisingly good and my confidence grows each day that soon enough you will know the full truth," Spacey says.
Spacey's monologue, delivered over a kitchen sink, veers from references to "House of Cards" to an oblique defense against widespread charges of sexual misconduct that began to emerge late last year as the #MeToo movement gained steam. Among the many allegations against Spacey was the accusation that he assaulted actor Anthony Rapp at a party in New York when Rapp was 14.
"Of course some believed everything. They're just waiting with baited breath to hear me confess it all. They're just dying to hear me say that everything was true and I got what I deserved," Spacey said.
"You wouldn't believe the worst without evidence, would you? You wouldn't rush to judgment without facts, would you? Did you? All this presumption made for such an unsatisfying ending and to think it could have been such a memorable send off. I can promise you this: if I didn't pay the price for the things we both know I did, I'm certainly not going to pay the price for the things I didn't do."
In closing, Spacey taunts the viewer by asking the question, "You never actually saw me die, did you?" He then puts what looks like a wedding ring on his index finger glowers at the camera. "Conclusions can be so deceiving," he says. "Miss me?"
The video ends with an exaggerated musical flourish indicating a cliffhanger ending.
It could not immediately be confirmed if Spacey was in fact behind the video. Netflix declined to comment. A source close to Netflix said the streaming giant had no involvement with the video.
In October 2017, actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of making a sexual advance at a party in 1986. Twenty other men came forward to report that Spacey had engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior during his tenure as the artistic director of the Old Vic theatre in London.
Spacey is under criminal investigation in the United Kingdom, where authorities have invested six complaints against him. In Los Angeles, the Sheriff's Department investigated an allegation that Spacey committed forcible sodomy in 1992, but the case was rejected by the District Attorney's office due to the statute of limitations.
The Sheriff's Department submitted a second case to prosecutors in September. The victim in that case, a massage therapist known only as John Doe, filed a civil suit against Spacey later that month, alleging that Spacey had grabbed his hand and forced it onto his genitals. The suit alleged that Spacey tried to kiss the man and offered to perform oral sex.
© 2025 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.