Judge Throws Out Charges Against Spacey After Accuser Refuses to Publicly Reveal His Identity

A judge has dismissed charges against Kevin Spacey after his accuser—identified in court documents only as “C.D.”—refused to publicly reveal his identity.

The Manhattan judge, Lewis Kaplan, made C.D.’s case contingent on this point last month, when he ruled that the accuser must go public because he had already discussed the allegations in the press. Spacey’s lawyers specifically cited a November 2017 Vulture feature, which quoted C.D. anonymously; the lawyers’ argument was that C.D. would have given the outlet his real name off the record and that he “used the media to advance his case strategically.”

C.D.’s lawyers attempted to rebut these claims by emphasizing the emotional distress it would bring their client to be named in public court documents—and warned that their client would drop his charges if forced to—but Kaplan ultimately sided with Spacey’s lawyers.

“The evidence suggests that C.D. knowingly and repeatedly took the risk that any of these individuals at one point or another would reveal his true identity in a manner that would bring that identity to wide public attention, particularly given Spacey’s celebrity,” Kaplan wrote in his May decision.

C.D. is now the second accuser to have his charges against Spacey thrown out. In 2019, a judge dismissed indecent assault and battery charges when a Spacey accuser was reportedly “unable” to provide video evidence of the alleged incident. The same year, a massage therapist who accused Spacey of groping died after filing a lawsuit against Spacey, at which point lawyers for his estate dropped the charges. (Another accuser died by suicide, though he had no legal case against Spacey at the time of his death.)

Of the at least 15 men who have accused Spacey of sexual misconduct, Anthony Rapp is now the only person with an ongoing legal case against the disgraced actor, for sexual advances he says Spacey made toward him when he was just 14.