UK jury clears actor Kevin Spacey of all sexual assault charges

Former “House of Cards” star Kevin Spacey has been found not guilty of several counts of sexual assault against four men between 2001 and 2013, a British jury ruled Wednesday.

The jury consisted of nine men and three women, who heard testimony over four weeks in London. The jurors began deliberations on Monday, July 24, and took two days to reach a verdict. Spacey was accused of sexual assault, causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent and causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity, The BBC reported. He has been cleared of all charges in the U.K.

“I am humbled by the outcome today,” Spacey said following the verdict, adding that he was “enormously grateful” to the jury.

During the trial, an alleged victim of Spacey took the witness stand to share his claim that the veteran actor had performed oral sex while he was sleeping. The man reportedly said, “I was taken advantage of, I believe drugged.”

Spacey is a two-time Oscar winner, who took home a best supporting actor statue for the 1995 film “The Usual Suspects” and a lead actor trophy for the 1999 movie “American Beauty.” His acting career, however, came under fire in 2017, after fellow actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of sexually assaulting him at a party in the 1980s when Rapp was 14 and Spacey was 26. Following the allegations, more than a dozen other individuals came forward with similar accounts of abuse.

Last year, a New York jury found that Spacey didn’t molest Rapp in 1986 in a $40 million sexual battery lawsuit. The alleged misconduct between Rapp and Spacey came to light amid #MeToo, a reckoning against sexual misconduct and abuse in Hollywood and across industries.