The United Kingdom is preparing an extradition request to the United States for the extradition of Kevin Spacey, accused of sexual assault
The British government is preparing a formal request that it will send to the United States to request the extradition of actor Kevin Spacey, who is accused of sexually assaulting four men, according to sources in the British Guardian newspaper.
The source explained that the process will be activated if the representative does not agree to travel to the United Kingdom voluntarily to be prosecuted. If he does not, the Home Office’s International Crime Directorate will request his extradition so that he can be arrested in the US and extradited to the UK.
Spacey, 62, learned last Thursday that the British Prosecution Service had authorized the issuance of an indictment in four crimes of sexual assault against three men between 2005 and 2013 in London and Gloucestershire following an investigation by Scotland Yard.
The extradition process can take months because the US Department of Justice must decide whether there is a “probable cause” of the crime. Then, an arrest warrant will be issued and a process begins that can be appealed in any case, and this would also limit the crimes he could be accused of.
Two charges relate to sexual assaults in March 2005 in London against one of the complainants. Another sexual assault was implicated by a second female complainant in August 2008, who also engaged in penetrative sexual activity. The actor is accused of committing a fourth sexual assault of the third complainant in April 2013 in Gloucestershire, in southwest England.
The alleged crimes were committed when the actor managed one of London’s most historic theaters, the Old Vic.
London’s Old Vic Theatre, where Spacey was artistic director from 2004 to 2015, has apologized after revealing that it had received as many as 20 complaints against the actor for inappropriate behavior.
Spacey, the star of films like “American Beauty” and the Academy Award-winning series “House of Cards,” was the subject of several complaints in the United States about sexual harassment and assault in 2017.
The wave of accusations that ended his career followed the rise of the #MeToo movement, which was born out of the case of American film producer Harvey Weinstein, who was sentenced to 23 years in prison in 2020.
Actor Anthony Rapp, whose credits include the Broadway musical “Rent” and the film adaptation as well as the television “Star Trek: Discovery,” said Spacey molested him when he was 14 at a party in the 1980s.
Spacey released a statement in response saying he did not remember the meeting, but apologised.
In November of last year, Spacey was notified that he would have to pay more than $30 million to the studio behind “House of Cards” due to losses from his expulsion for sexual misconduct.
A document filed in Los Angeles Superior Court seeking the judge’s approval of the ruling says the arbitrators found Spacey violated the professional conduct clause of his contract by “engaging in certain conduct with respect to several team members in each of the five seasons in which he played the starring and executive roles of House of Cards production”.