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Kevin Spacey's Motion to Be Excused from Nantucket Arraignment Denied

Correction: An earlier version of this story said the Supreme Judicial Court had excused Kevin Spacey from appearing at his arraignment.

A Massachusetts judge has denied actor Kevin Spacey's motion that he be excused from appearing at his arraignment in Nantucket on a charge of indecent assault and battery. 

A lawyer had filed a motion for the disgraced actor to be excused from the Jan. 7 arraignment. Spacey is accused of assaulting the teenage son of a Boston television anchor.

The actor says his presence at a Massachusetts courthouse on accusations that he groped the young man would "amplify the negative publicity already generated in connection with this case."

Spacey says in documents received by the Nantucket District Court on Monday that he's pleading not guilty and believes he should be excused from appearing at his arraignment.

The actor was first publicly accused in November 2017 by the victim's mother, former WCVB-TV news anchor Heather Unruh. She said her son was sexually assaulted by Spacey inside Nantucket's Club Car Restaurant.

"The victim - my son - was a starstruck, straight 18-year-old young man who had no idea that the famous actor was an alleged sexual predator or that he was about to become his next victim," Unruh said in November 2017.

"I want to make it clear - this was a criminal act," Unruh said. "It harmed him, and it cannot be undone."

A public show-cause hearing was held on Dec. 20 where a criminal complaint was issued against Kevin S. Fowler, also known as Kevin Spacey. The Boston Globe was the first to report that a criminal complaint had been filed.

"The complainant has shown a tremendous amount of courage in coming forward," Mitchell Garabedian, attorney for the accuser, said in a public statement in response to the filed complaint. "Let the facts be presented, the relevant law applied and a just and fair verdict rendered."

Minutes after news of the charge went public on Christmas Eve, Spacey tweeted a link to a YouTube video showing a monologue of himself apparently as Frank Underwood, the fictional character he once played in the series, "House of Cards."

Spacey was removed from the cast amid other allegations of inappropriate behavior by the actor.

"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," Spacey says in the monologue.

It remains unclear if the social media posts have any connection to the latest charge.

Spacey hasn't responded to a request for comment.

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