BOSTON (AP) — A young man who says Kevin Spacey groped him in a Nantucket bar in 2016 has dropped his lawsuit against the Oscar-winning actor, his lawyer said Friday.
Spacey still faces a criminal charge. He pleaded not guilty to indecent assault and battery in January.
His accuser's lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, announced in an email that the suit filed June 26 in Nantucket Superior Court has been voluntarily dismissed. No reason was provided either by Garabedian or in the court filing. Garabedian said he would have no further comment. A telephone message was left at his office.
According to the court filing, the suit was dismissed "with prejudice," which means it cannot be refiled.
An email was left Friday requesting comment from Alan Jackson, Spacey's attorney. Jackson has previously said the man is lying in the hopes of winning money in a civil case against Spacey.
The legal development could have significance for the criminal case against Spacey, legal experts say.
While there are a range of reasons why a civil suit is dropped so quickly after being filed, it could be an indicator a private settlement was reached and that the accuser may ultimately stop cooperating with prosecutors, said William Korman, a former prosecutor in the Suffolk County District Attorney's office who is now a criminal defense lawyer specializing in sexual assault cases.
"Any settlement could not be conditioned on a refusal to cooperate with the prosecution," said Korman. "Nevertheless, money is a great motivator for an individual not to follow through."
It's also possible prosecutors, upset with the timing of the civil suit, specifically asked the accuser to drop it, said David Yannetti, a former prosecutor who is now a criminal defense lawyer in Boston. The civil suit was filed months into the ongoing criminal case, but such suits are typically filed after a criminal case is decided, he said.
"Maybe the prosecution said it's either about money or it's about a crime, but it can't be about both and you have to make a decision on where you want to go with this," Yannetti said.
The civil suit was likely filed before completion of the criminal case because the three-year statute of limitations is approaching, added Yannetti.
"We're operating with very little info, but it's clear something unusual is going on here," he said. "Either the prosecution got involved or there was some sort of civil settlement."
Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe's office declined to comment on whether prosecutors had any role in the withdrawal of the civil suit or whether a settlement has been reached.
"The criminal case is independent from the civil case and will go forward," Assistant District Attorney Tara Miltimore said in an email.
Garabedian's client, the son of Boston TV anchor Heather Unruh, alleged Spacey got him drunk and sexually assaulted him at the Club Car restaurant where the then-18-year-old man worked as a busboy.
The criminal case has centered on the cellphone used by the accuser the night of the alleged groping, which the defense says it needs in order to recover text messages it says will support Spacey's innocence.
Nantucket District Court Judge Thomas Barrett has ordered the man to hand the phone over to the defense, but his attorney said they cannot find it. The judge has given them until Monday to produce the phone.
INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana native and star on MTV's 'Teen Mom OG' was arrested Friday morning for battery.
Amber Portwood was arrested Friday at her home in Indianapolis by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. Police responded to the home on Anchorage Drive just after 3 a.m. for a disturbance.
Arriving officers say the male victim told them his live-in-girlfriend assaulted him while he was holding their one-year-old child.
Portwood has two kids, ages 1 and 10. She and her boyfriend, Andrew Glennon, recently had a pregnancy scare on the "Teen Mom OG" show, according to TMZ.
Portwood is preliminarily charged with felony domestic battery with a child under 16 present.
This isn't Portwood's first brush with the law. She spent 17 months in prison in 2012 after violating her probation from a drug possession case.
BOSTON (Reuters) - The man that former “House of Cards” star Kevin Spacey is accused by prosecutors of sexually assaulting in Massachusetts three years ago has dropped a civil lawsuit he filed against the Oscar-winning actor only last week.
FILE PHOTO: Actor Kevin Spacey, with his lawyer Alan Jackson at his side, is arraigned on a sexual assault charge at Nantucket District Court in Nantucket, Massachusetts, U.S., January 7, 2019. Nicole Harnishfeger/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
Mitchell Garabedian, the alleged victim’s lawyer, on Friday said his client filed papers on Wednesday to voluntarily dismiss a lawsuit in Nantucket County Superior Court that accused Spacey of “explicit sexual behavior and lewd and lascivious conduct.”
Garabedian declined to comment further on the dismissal, citing the pending criminal case prosecutors filed last year against Spacey. The civil lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice, meaning his client cannot refile the case later.
Spacey, who won an Academy Award in 2000 for his role in “American Beauty,” has pleaded not guilty to one count of felony indecent assault and battery at a bar on the Massachusetts beach island of Nantucket. Spacey denies the allegation.
Reuters is not identifying the accuser because he is an alleged victim of sexual assault. Spacey’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
Spacey first became embroiled in controversy in October 2017 when actor Anthony Rapp accused him of trying to seduce him in 1986 when Rapp was 14. The controversy led to Spacey being dropped from the Netflix television series “House of Cards” and erased from the film “All the Money in the World.”
Spacey, 59, apologized for inappropriate conduct with Rapp.
Spacey is one of dozens of men in the entertainment industry, business and politics who have been accused of sexual misconduct following the emergence in 2017 of the #MeToo movement.
Prosecutors charged Spacey in the Nantucket case in December.
The accuser told police Spacey had bought him several rounds of beer and whiskey at the Club Car Restaurant on Nantucket in July 2016 when he was 18 years old and said at one point, “Let’s get drunk,” according to charging documents.
As they stood next to a piano, Spacey groped him, he told investigators.
Spacey’s lawyers have accused the man of deleting text messages that would support his defense. The judge overseeing his criminal case recently ordered Spacey’s accuser to provide his cellphone to the defense.
But Garabedian on June 19 told the court the accuser cannot find the phone. The judge has ordered the accuser, his parents and Garabedian to attend a hearing on Monday if it cannot be found.
Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Howard Goller
Joe Keery, Gaten Matarazzo, Maya Hawke, Priah FergusonScreenshot: Netflix
“Chapter Five: The Flayed” opens with a thrill ride, there’s no denying it. As Starcourt’s “secret room” plunges (as Steve poetically puts it) “halfway to hell,” our heroes’ screams rise over the screeching of metal on metal as their elevator car drops. (Dustin’s scream alone is bloodcurdling; hats off to Gaten Matarazzo and his inimitable pipes.) Joyce and Hopper’s adventure is quieter but just as suspenseful, as they arrive at the old Hess farm in search of a massive government conspiracy—and not even their own government this time!
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But however ghastly or intense the show gets, thrills have never been the heart of Stranger Things. The characters, with all their messy, complicated relationships, are the show’s heart. “The Flayed” intersperses its action with character beats, but it rarely integrates character and action as previous seasons have routinely done.
For better or worse, Stranger Things has embraced the traditional, even hackneyed, logic of the three-part film franchise. The original, the most beloved chapter, is a scrappy, lean work that balances style and substance, and relies on its core characters and the viewer’s fascination more than any special effect or showcase scene. The secondexpands the universe, bringing in new, often broader characters and wider settings, creating more complex systems of interpersonal drama and bigger action. The third blows up the whole dang thing in an extravaganza of violence and over-the-top characters. (Sure, sure, my example of film franchise is a tetralogy, but as my colleague Clayton Purdom puts it, “films think in triplicate.”)
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There’s one big in-universe problem with these folks acting like action heroes: They’re terrible at this! Joyce and Hopper go out to search the suspicious properties on Kline’s list, not bothering to tell anyone where they’ve gone or why. Steve, Dustin, and Robin are trapped in the “secret room,” now deep underground, and they brought a child, also without leaving a clue of their whereabouts.
They make wild leaps of logic, like Nancy announcing, “That proves it!”—it being every single thing she’s speculated about—after learning that two odd events took place “around 9:00” last night. (She’s right; as Mike said earlier, “This can’t be a coincidence!,” because most fiction allows little room for coincidence.) They announce their presence everywhere they go, like Steve splashing urine on two separate levels of their confined space, or Hopper barreling his Blazer right up the driveways of the secret buildings they’re secretly scouting.
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Screenshot: Netflix
But, entertainingly, they’re also great at this. Hopper jauntily commandeers a bystander’s airboatconvertible as casually as he might hail a cab. Winona Ryder continues her unexpected detour into quiet comic genius as Joyce shifts her body language from flustered mom to seen-it-all cop after hearing Hopper introduce her as “Detective Byers.” Will’s plan to let Doris Driscoll lead them back to “the source” is solid; though they’re too late to put it in action, and their arrival at the hospital does lead them to Tom and Bruce, and to the slithering entity that their bodies unite to form.
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They’re great at this and they’re terrible at this, and that’s where all the entertainment in “The Flayed” arises, and—despite the noise and violence of prolonged fights—much of its tension. Even Erica, the unlikely key to entering Starcourt’s secret elevator, has her head on a swivel and her spy patter down pat: “First door, northwest,” she tells the others with the assurance of a Mission Impossible agent. “The comms room.”
Gaten Matarazzo, Priah Ferguson, Maya Hawke: “You won a fight!” Screenshot: Netflix
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Joe Keery showcases what works best in these action scenes, hustling his team to what passes for safety with a characteristic combination of audacity and anxiety. In the middle of the clear, coherent, but otherwise uninspired fight between legend-in-his-own-mind Steve Harrington and a hapless Russian soldier (in what does appear to be the comms room! Good work, Erica!), Steve grabs an instrument from its cradle, flips it in the air as casually as he flips his Scoops Ahoy ice cream scoop, and bashes his opponent with it. It’s a needless flourish, but it’s also a moment of pure Steve Harrington in an otherwise generic fight scene.
We have to talk about Bruce. What is the point of Bruce? What, one might ask, use is Bruce? He has no personality beyond “loud, crude, and insulting,” and now that he’s in the command of the Mind Flayer, he need never have a personality again. So why does he exist? Why bother to have Jake Busey play this braying, empty husk?
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Jake BuseyPhoto: Netflix
On any other show, I would expect future development of this character to justify the casting, but any other show didn’t let Cara Buono melt into the background for two seasons before she had a chance to shine, and any other show didn’t introduce Billy Hargrove as a mysterious new resident with a seething temper and an even more sinister, slippery charm, only to reveal his entire dark secret of that season was… an abusive father.
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Stranger Things can be lovingly attentive to its core characters, but those on the sidelines sometimes feel like props or puppets, their behavior exactly as ominous or innocuous as the script demands. With her unflappable confidence and unstoppable wisecracks, Priah Ferguson plays Erica as a classic action-movie sidekick. It’s not her fault the character is written as a cliché, never given fear, or anything but admirable self-interest and smart backtalk.
Erica’s costume goes farther even than her dialogue to camouflage the sight of a little girl in grave danger; with two flashlights taped to her helmet, with her pads and backpack adding odd angles to her silhouette, Erica is reduced almost to a robotic sidekick/instigator in the style of Short Circuit’s Johnny 5. But for me, that facial silhouette will always conjure up images of Roberto, ha HA!
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Priah FergusonScreenshot: Netflix
Stranger Things has always had its share of under-served or overblown characters. But “The Flayed” also lets its central characters lapse into lazy gender stereotypes. (It’s not the first time, or the second, or the third, and some on-set dynamics demanded scrutiny as well. Many of those potential problems, on-screen and off, have been resolved, but not all of them.) In earlier seasons, those slanted, even sexist portrayals are incidental and presumably unintentional; in “The Flayed,” writer Paul Dichter (Stranger Things staff writer, and credited with the eerily effective “Will The Wise”) hangs a lampshade on the show’s simplistic gender dynamics.
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It’s more than Mike and Lucas moaning about girls being “a totally different species” of creatures who “act on emotion and not logic.” It’s more than this episode’s action grinding to a halt while Max and El giggle into a mirror together, or Lucas informing his friends wearily that “girls just like hanging out in bathrooms.” It’s Mike assuming that two girls laughing means “they’re conspiring against me!” It’s Hopper insisting that Joyce’s fears are a way of avoiding what really matters, which is him. It’s Jonathan, hearing Nancy’s urgent, near-panicked voice on the phone at dawn and being surprised that she wants to talk about anything but their breakup.
It’s the female characters accepting that they are seen either as incorrigible fabulists or as infallible. Like Robin before her, Max gleefully asks the boys, “You do still realize we can hear everything you’re saying, right?” Nancy apologizes to Jonathan and accepts his apology, then gloats, “I just look forward to you never doubting me again.” Listening to Joyce’s story, Hopper scoffs that she should “stick to sales” (a particularly sharp jibe considering the going out of business vibe Melvald’s gives off these day); when he sees evidence mount, he beams, telling her with a twinkle to come work for him at Hawkins P.D.
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Most emblematic of all, it’s Mike, who has twice now tried to make up with El without quite apologizing. Gathering supplies at the pool, he tried to charm her into a smile and explain “the context” of his lies; in the hospital waiting room, he offers to share his candy, asking, “Does your species like M&Ms?” He doesn’t make amends; he doesn’t promise to behave better. In this episode, Mike Wheeler and the writers and showrunners of Stranger Things have this in common: They’re trying to entertain and charm their way past their mistakes instead of addressing them.
Putting a lampshade on the thing you’re doing wrong isn’t the same as doing it right. And maybe that’s the core problem with this season, the reason it hasn’t quite hit its stride.Going big and broad with its cast, its world, its characters, and especially its new embrace ofthe loud, slick style of ’80s action flicks, Stranger Things is doing something that doesn’t quite work, and winking at us about its failings. Stranger Things has successfully navigated the perils of being moony, blunt, and unabashedly earnest. What it’s not great at is winking.
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Stray observations
“You did it! You won a fight!” Hey, if you’re going to win one fight, make it the one against the lone armed guard whose station you’ve infiltrated.
“I’ll take those odds,” Robin says, and if I were trapped in an underground bunker full of nervous scientists and heavily armed guards, one out of a hundred odds of escape would sound pretty good to me, too.
'Teen Mom' star Amber Portwood has been arrested for domestic battery ... TMZ has learned.
The 29-year-old and boyfriend Andrew Glennon just announced on the show they're pregnant. She also hinted they might soon get married.
She was arrested in Indianapolis Friday just before 6:00 AM. Cops are not saying who the alleged victim is ... per protocol.
Portwood was still in custody at the time of this post.
She has 2 kids -- 1-year-old James, whose father is Andrew, and 10-year-old Leah, whose father is her ex-boyfriend Gary Shirley.
Portwood went to prison for 17 months back in 2012 for violation her probation in a drug possession case. She actually had a choice of prison vs. rehab ... she chose prison.
Criticism over the pair's decision to keep baby Archie out of the spotlight has been mounting for months. And recent revelations -- that British taxpayers footed a £2.4 million (about $3 million) bill for home renovation, and plans to keep his christening private -- have done little to silence critics.
It's worth noting that royal baptisms have traditionally been private affairs. However in recent years cameras have been allowed to capture the arrivals of the family and their guests. That was certainly the case for all three Cambridge children -- George, Charlotte and Louis -- although they are higher in the line of succession.
This Saturday, Harry and Meghan have arranged a completely private ceremony for Archie led by the Archbishop of Canterbury at a chapel inside Windsor Castle. The palace won't officially confirm who's attending, though a royal source told CNN that fewer than 25 family and friends are invited. And while the media is excluded, pictures taken by their personal photographer, Chris Allerton, will be released after the service.
"Meghan can't demand privacy for baby Archie while asking the public to fund her family's lifestyle," complained the Daily Telegraph. The Sunday Times quoted royal biographer Penny Junor as saying: "They can't have it both ways. Either they are totally private, pay for their own house and disappear out of view, or play the game the way it is played."
Even politicians have weighed into the row. Labour Member of Parliament Luke Pollard told CNN the royal couple's recent behavior raises questions.
"When you're still taking millions of pounds worth of public money -- money that could be spent in schools and hospitals -- to upgrade and refurbish what is, you know, luxury palaces, you've got to ask yourself: what are the public getting in return?"
Pollard said he saw no problem with critics questioning how public money was being spent, and expressed concern that Harry and Meghan were "trying to have their cake and eat it."
He explained: "They're trying to get the public money for their lifestyle but not do the public duties that go along with it and that's a question that is rightly being asked and debated here.
"I don't think the overall family will be overthrown here. I think this is a chance to look at: Is the behavior of the royal family the right way forward? And at a time when there's not a lot of money for our public services, is every penny they're spending being spent well?" Pollard said.
This type of critique infuriates the #SussexSquad -- a vociferous army of online supporters, particularly of Meghan. On stories like the christening, those devoted to the duchess enlist the help of an unlikely defender: a US law professor.
Goldburn P. Maynard Jr at the University of Louisville describes himself as an "ally" of the squad who steps in online to "amplify" the voices of #SussexSquad and call out cases of what he calls "misogynoir."
"I don't see any kind of contradiction between there being taxpayer funding or public funding and the royals asking for some privacy," he told CNN. "Here, in the United States, we very much have a lot of public servants but we very well know their children are off limits and are able to have a private life and we are OK with that."
For Maynard, it's interesting how the christening plays into a wider narrative about the duchess.
"The default when it comes to Meghan -- because she is a foreigner and she's not royal, from this society, etc. -- is that when she does something, she is doing something that's wrong. Women of color are actually really used to that narrative," he explained. "What a lot of us are seeing is that she is being held to a higher standard despite the fact that, in many ways, she's hit the ground running."
He continued: "She put out the book and she's made all of this money for charity and she's brought all of this attention. And yet there are all of these critiques on these niggling things that shouldn't matter very much."
Maynard views criticism of Meghan through the prism of criticism of women of color generally.
"So, women of color are uncouth, women of color are undeserving, women of color are angry, etc. And so, what all this coverage has done is to reinforce all those kinds of narratives and biases when it comes to who is today the most prominent woman in the world. So, it is reinforcing those narratives on a worldwide scale, so that's why I think it's really harmful."
But Pollard argues that publicly funded royal should be put under appropriate scrutiny: "It's so important that actually in defending Meghan and Harry's decisions, we need to be clear that when they get it wrong we can offer a criticism which is fair and justified without any loading of hate that some other folks are trying to use."
For many royal fans, Archie's christening is simply a chance to see how he's grown. With just the one photocall shortly after his birth and a couple of carefully snapped Instagram posts, the world still has yet to see his little face properly.
For his parents, it's simple too. They've clearly made the decision to bring him up as a private citizen, which also explains why they aren't using a title for him and why they feel they have a right to refuse media access to an event that is primarily about him.
Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas jetted off to Italy after Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas spectacular France wedding. The 26-year-old singer shared a picture from his visit to Via Dell Amore (The Way of Love in English), a pedestrian street with a picturesque view. Priyanka looked nice in a printed wrap-dress while Nick Jonas opted for summery separates complementing his actress wife. Priyanka Chopra added a heart-eyed emoticon in the comments section of Nick Jonas' post, which read: "Via Dell Amore... or Love Way in other words." The Jonases spent a super busy weekend at the Jophie wedding and this vacation give Priyanka and Nick ample time together before they get busy with their respective hectic work schedules.
Here's the picture of Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra showing their fans the 'Way of Love':
Before the Italy getaway, Priyanka and Nick attended Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas' wedding, which was spread over three days. Priyanka and Nick attended their Parisian cruise party and also the rehearsal dinner, where they were joined by the rest of the family.
Priyanka Chopra recently completed filming The Sky Is Pink in India and she will soon get busy with her project in collaboration with Mindy Kaling. Priyanka and Mindy are making a film on an extravagant wedding.
Meanwhile, Nick Jonas, who revived music band The Jonas Brothers with his siblings Joe and Kevin, is all set to embark on the 'Happiness Begins' tour with them. Nick Jonas has also signed up for the sequel of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and for Chaos Walking.
