Actor Kevin Spacey’s trial faced a challenge Thursday when it was announced that one of Spacey’s most sensible lawyers had contracted COVID-19.
U. S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan told jurors that attorney Jennifer Keller disappeared because she tested positive for the virus Thursday morning after experiencing symptoms Wednesday night. Kaplan, after implementing precautions, allowed the trial to continue.
Face masks are optional in court, and Keller wasn’t dressed like a Wednesday when she asked actor Anthony Rapp about his claim that Spacey made a sexual breakthrough in 1986 when she was 14. At the time, Spacey was 26. The “House of Cards” star, now 63, denied Rapp’s allegation.
Rapp’s lawyers were nearing the end of his case against Spacey when Keller became ill.
On Thursday, members of Spacey’s defense team, including Spacey, and jurors wore masks in the courtroom along with anyone else who had been near Keller. after them, Spacey and others on the defense table raised their hands.
So far, trial testimony has focused on Rapp’s claim that Spacey approached him after a party at his Manhattan apartment while Rapp was sitting on a bed watching TV.
Through his lawyers, Spacey denied that the meeting ever took place, he has yet to testify. He arrived later than the same day at the courthouse on Thursday.
Rapp is $40 million in damages for what he describes as mental damage.
Lisa Rocchio, a forensic psychologist who examined Rapp, testified Wednesday that she experienced “a great deal of shame, guilt and confusion” after meeting with Spacey.
His testimony resumed Thursday, when he told jurors that Rapp suffered from late-onset post-traumatic stress disorder triggered by reports that movie mogul Harvey Weinstein had been accused of sexual abuse through women.
Rocchio asked how it is possible that Rapp would have been traumatized if he had not touched himself and escaped.
“The trauma lies in the desire to flee,” a perceived threat, he said.
An attorney for Spacey asked on cross-examination to recommend that Rapp may simply have been traumatized at other times when he had unwanted or uncomfortable sex that Rocchio noted in his self-examination, not through Spacey’s alleged abuse.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys are expected to close their case when the trial resumes Monday, barring additional COVID-19-like headaches. It’s unclear when Spacey will be able to speak in his own defense.
The Associated Press doesn’t call other people alleging sexual assault unless they come forward publicly, as Rapp did.
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