LA District Attorney reviewing sexual assault case involving Kevin Spacey

It has been almost six months since actor Anthony Rapp accused Kevin Spacey of inappropriate sexual behavior when Rapp was just a teenager. Today the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department revealed that it had turned a separate case over to the District Attorney’s office for review. However, there’s a catch. From the LA Times:

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The investigation was referred to prosecutors April 5 by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.

The department’s Special Victims Bureau began an investigation into allegations of a sexual assault involving Spacey on Dec 11, 2017, Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Nicole Nishida said.

“The events were reported to have taken place in October of 1992 in West Hollywood involving a male adult,” she said…

Officials have declined to give specifics about the allegation against Spacey, but the date of the alleged incident would make it impossible to prosecute.

Any sex crime involving an adult that occurred in 1992 would fall outside California’s statute of limitations. Two years ago, California lawmakers enacted a law eliminating the previous 10-year statute of limitations for rape — the most serious of sex crimes — but that does not include offenses prior to 2016.

Earlier this week, LA prosecutors announced they would not file charges in cases against director James Toback who has been accused by nearly 400 women of sexual harassment. LA prosecutors were looking at five specific cases but found the statute of limitations had been exceeded in all five of them. From the NY Times:

Mr. Toback, 73, was accused by five women of crimes ranging from misdemeanor indecent exposure to felony sexual battery, according to documents provided to The New York Times by a spokesman for the district attorney’s office. The crimes were alleged to have occurred between 1978 and 2008.

According to the documents, Mr. Toback rubbed his groin, while clothed, on women’s legs until he ejaculated; pushed one woman against a wall and asked her for sex; instructed one woman to masturbate; and touched the chest and buttocks of one woman and tried to kiss her.

Still, prosecutors said, the statute of limitations had expired in each case.

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As for Spacey, he is far from being off the hook yet. Last November a woman came forward claiming Spacey had sexually assaulted her 18-year-old son at a bar in Nantucket, Massachusetts in 2016. The son did not file a police report at the time but did file one last November.

Additionally, the Old Vic Theater in London, where Spacey was the artistic director from 2004 to 2015, uncovered 20 allegations of inappropriate behavior, most of those pre-2009. Scotland Yard is reportedly investigating several allegations against Spacey.

Spacey was kicked off his Netflix series, House of Cards, after the allegations by Anthony Rapp and others last year. He was also cut out of a finished film and replaced, through reshoots, by actor Christopher Plummer.

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