Kevin Spacey Trial: Anthony Rapp’s Lawyer Rips Defense In Closing Argument: “Cooked Up Lie Out Of Thin Air”
deadline.comAnthony Rapp’s lawyer told jurors in the Kevin Spacey trial on Thursday that his client told the truth, consistently over time, about being sexually assaulted by theOscar-winning actor in 1986 even when that truth was “messy” and didn’t always help his case.
In the first round of closing arguments in Rapp’s $40 million sexual misconduct suit, lawyer Richard Steigman said that Spacey’s only defense at trial was to accuse Rapp of carrying on “a 35-year crusade” against a fellow actor based on a lie that has had conveniently shifting motives over the years — from romantic jealousy to professional envy to gay rage to self-promotion — none of which Spacey’s lawyers ever proved.
Saying Rapp “cooked up that lie out of thin air” was, in Steigman’s words, “a defense to a lawsuit: nothing more and nothing less.
Because if you’re going to call a guy a liar, then you’ve got to give him a motive.” The defense will begin its closing argument before Judge Lewis Kaplan this afternoon in Manhattan.
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