Anonymous Kevin Spacey accuser must reveal his identity or drop £30 million lawsuit, judge rules
Kevin Spacey. (Getty)
A lawsuit against Kevin Spacey cannot go ahead unless the accuser reveals his identity, a judge has ruled.
The man, publicly known as “CD”, claims he first met Kevin Spacey at an acting class when he was 12 years old and the actor was 22, and that he began abusing him when he was 14.
He filed a $40 million (£28.8 million) sexual assault lawsuit against the disgraced actor, but has been told that it will not be able to go ahead unless he reveals his name.
On Monday (3 May), New York federal judge Lewis A Kaplan ruled: “CD’s privacy interest – despite the publicity that this case may generate – does not outweigh the prejudice to Spacey and the presumption of open judicial proceedings.”
Kaplan noted that CD’s legal representation argued for his anonymity on the grounds that revealing his identity would “retrigger” his PTSD relating to the incident, but the judge insisted CD’s “prior actions undercut his position”.
During the same week in 2017 that Star Trek actor Anthony Rapp spoke out about an alleged sexual assault against him by Spacey when he was a teenager, CD gave an anonymous interview to Vulture in which he described his experience.
He said at the time: “I have worked really hard to have a nice life and feel safe, and I’m not giving that up for him.
“I don’t want them to be able to find their way back to me.”
But by going to the press, even as an unnamed source, before any legal proceedings had begun, Kaplan said CD had already risked exposing his identity.
He wrote: “The evidence suggests that CD 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.”
The US district judge has now given CD’s legal representation 10 days to reveal his name for the lawsuit to continue.
