Actor Kevin Spacey, who’s due to appear in court Monday in an indecent assault and battery case, has been questioned in the US by officers from London’s Metropolitan Police Service over alleged sexual assault offenses in the UK, Variety reported exclusively Saturday.
The report, without citing specific sources, says six allegations of sexual assault have been lodged with Scotland Yard, London’s police force, by six different men between 1996 and 2013.
The Met Police does not identify individuals who may be subject to an investigation, but when asked about the Variety report, told CNN it had received allegations that one man had sexually assaulted six different individuals between 1996 and 2013, and that the man “was voluntarily interviewed under caution in America, by officers from the Met’s Complex Case Team.”
“He was not arrested,” Met Police said. “Enquiries are ongoing.”
The questioning of the man took place in May, Met Police said.
CNN has reached out to and is awaiting a response from Alan Jackson, the actor’s Los Angeles-based attorney.
Spacey, 59, faces criminal charges of indecent assault and battery in Massachusetts following an alleged incident in July of 2016 in which an accuser said Spacey bought him “multiple alcoholic beverages” before he then forcibly touched and fondled the then-18-year-old’s genitals.
The former “House of Cards” star has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is expected to attend a hearing related to the case in Massachusetts on Monday.
Civil lawsuit dropped
Friday, the accuser in that case dropped a civil lawsuit he had filed against Spacey a week earlier. In it, the accuser made the same allegations he made in the ongoing criminal case and said he had suffered mental distress. The suit demanded judgment in an amount to be determined by a jury, including costs, interests and attorney fees.
CNN is not naming the accuser because he is an alleged victim of sexual assault.
The accuser’s attorney, Mitchell Garabedian, told CNN via email Friday that he and his client voluntarily dropped the lawsuit and that he would have no further comment.
A lost cell phone
At issue in Monday’s pretrial hearing is the cell phone on which the accuser texted his girlfriend and sent a video during the alleged assault. The prosecution says it obtained data from the phone, which it shared with the defense, and then the phone was returned to the man’s family. Spacey’s defense team wants to examine the phone itself, claiming that exculpatory evidence may have been deleted before it was given to police and prosecutors.
“Access to the underlying databases is necessary to perform a proper analysis, including whether messages may have been deleted or to attempt recovery of deleted data,” defense expert Sankara Shanmugam wrote in an affidavit.
Judge Thomas Barrett ruled in June the defense was entitled to inspect the phone. However, the accuser and his family have said they don’t have it and don’t know where it is.
Barrett extended the deadline for turning the phone over until Monday and said that if it’s not found, the accuser, his attorney and his mother must appear in court to testify about its whereabouts.
