More than a year after facing sexual misconduct accusations, Kevin Spacey made his first appearance in court.
The actor on Monday was arraigned in Nantucket, Massachusetts, where he allegedly sexually assaulted an 18-year-old at a bar in 2016. Spacey's attorneys entered his not guilty plea to the charge of felony indecent assault and battery, although Spacey himself did not speak during the arraignment, CNN reports.
Spacey had requested permission not to appear in person for his arraignment — Judge Thomas Barrett denied the request but said Monday that Spacey only needs to be available over the phone for the next hearing, which was scheduled for March, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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The judge additionally ordered Spacey to have no contact with the man accusing him of assault, and requested that six months of the accuser's phone data be preserved, The Associated Press reports. Spacey's lawyers say some of the data is "likely exculpatory." If convicted, Spacey could face five years of jail time.
In October 2017, actor Anthony Rapp told BuzzFeed News that Spacey tried to sexually proposition him when he was 14 and Spacey was 26. A wave of misconduct accusations followed, one of which came from news reporter Heather Unruh, who says Spacey groped her son at a Nantucket bar where he worked, leading to Spacey's criminal charges.
On the same day he was charged in December, Spacey released a bizarre YouTube video in which he spoke in character as House of Cards' Frank Underwood to deny the allegations. "I can promise you this," he said. "If I didn't pay the price for the things we both know I did do, I'm certainly not going to pay the price for the things I didn't do."
Watch footage of Spacey's court appearance below. Brendan Morrow
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