The lawyer for the man who accused Kevin Spacey of sexual assault doubled down Wednesday on his accusation that police were responsible for the missing phone at the center of the case, and expressed concerns about the long term impacts of how things played out.
“If a woman is attacked by a man, and she defends herself with a hatchet, and then charges are pressed against the man …. [Are] the police going to give the hatchet back before the trial even takes place … and they’re not going to get a receipt for the hatchet?” attorney Mitchell Garabedian asked incredulously, referring to an earlier admittance by the police that they did not have any documentation of returning the phone to the family. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Garabedian made the comments while speaking with Jim Braude on Greater Boston.
Assault charges by Garabedian’s client against actor Kevin Spacey were dropped last week when prosecutors determined they could not move forward without the alleged victim’s testimony. The decision came after the accuser invoked his Fifth Amendment right in court after being questioned about data that had been deleted from the same phone on which he said he had recorded the assault. Garabedian said he did not know ahead of time that his client would do so.
The accuser’s mother, former anchorwoman Heather Unruh, had previously admitted that she had deleted some videos from the phone, but said they depicted her son partying and had no relation to the sexual assault case.
Garabedian also expressed concern about a “chilling effect” that the case has had on sexual assault victims coming forward. “I’ve given them the option to go to district attorneys, for instance, in Massachusetts [and] they’ve said … not after what happened in the Spacey matter,” he said.
Spacey has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple people, including several in the United Kingdom who worked at the Old Vic Theatre in London with the actor.
