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  • Kevin Spacey Overturns UK Ruling in Sex Assault Case Over Lawyers’ Mistake

    Kevin Spacey Overturns UK Ruling in Sex Assault Case Over Lawyers’ Mistake

    LONDON (Reuters) – Oscar-winning U.S. actor Kevin Spacey on Tuesday overturned a London court ruling which effectively found him liable for an alleged sexual assault on a British man, after his lawyers mistakenly failed to serve a defence to a civil lawsuit.

    Spacey is being sued at London’s High Court by a man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, who alleges that in 2008 he was sexually assaulted by the Hollywood star. The actor has denied the allegations.

    In 2022, the 64-year-old was charged in Britain with nine sexual offences against four men between 2004 and 2013 but was acquitted of all charges after a high-profile trial last year.

    One of those four complainants separately sued Spacey in a civil lawsuit at London’s High Court in 2022.

    Earlier this year, a judge granted the man “judgment in default” – a ruling in his favour without a trial – after Spacey’s lawyers failed to serve a defence to the lawsuit in time.

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    Adam Speker, a lawyer representing Spacey, said it was a “genuine error” by the actor’s legal team from the prominent British law firm Carter-Ruck.

    Speker argued it would be unfair for the claimant to effectively win his lawsuit against Spacey without a trial when he had been “disbelieved on oath by a jury”.

    Judge Jeremy Cook ruled in Spacey’s favour and overturned the judgment in default against the actor.

    “The defendant’s solicitors have made an error,” Cook said. “In my view, that error should not be visited upon the defendant.”

    Tuesday’s ruling means that the claimant’s case against Spacey will proceed towards a full trial.

    The ruling comes a day after Britain’s Channel 4 broadcast a documentary featuring testimony from several men who made allegations of inappropriate behaviour by Spacey.

    Spacey gave an interview to British broadcaster Dan Wootton ahead of the broadcast in which he denied any illegal activity and said he would not allow himself to be “baselessly attacked without defending himself”.

    “I take full responsibility for my past behaviour and my actions, but I cannot and will not take responsibility or apologise to anyone who’s made up stuff about me or exaggerated stories about me,” he said.

    (Reporting by Sam Tobin; Editing by Alison Williams)

    Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters.

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  • Alec Baldwin’s Criminal Case Hinges on a Wild West Revolver

    Alec Baldwin’s Criminal Case Hinges on a Wild West Revolver

    TAOS, New Mexico (Reuters) – A Colt .45 “Peacemaker” revolver, a symbol of the American Wild West, is at the center of actor Alec Baldwin’s fight to avoid criminal prosecution for the 2021 fatal shooting of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on a New Mexico movie set.

    Baldwin’s 15-month battle with New Mexico state prosecutors is heading towards a July 10 climax when the actor is scheduled to face trial for involuntary manslaughter over Hollywood’s first on-set shooting with a live-round in modern times.

    The movie’s weapons handler Hannah Gutierrez was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment on Monday for Hutchins’ death. Baldwin’s legal team is trying to have his indictment thrown out. His lawyers could seek a plea bargain if that fails.

    But should the charge hold, Baldwin’s trial is likely to focus on whether he pulled the trigger of his reproduction 1873 Colt .45 after he said he was directed – either by director Joel Souza or Hutchins – to point it at the cinematographer, according to different statements he made to the police and then to media.

    Baldwin argues that Hutchins died due to a breakdown in film industry firearms safety protocol, which as an actor he was not responsible for. He said it was not his job to inspect the gun and that he did not pull the trigger after Gutierrez mistakenly loaded a live round instead of an inert dummy.

    Firearms and legal experts do not expect a Santa Fe, New Mexico, jury to necessarily see it that way.

    In the Southwest United States, where gun ownership is routine, there is a cultural norm to check whether a weapon is loaded and never point it at someone and pull the trigger, according to Ashley Hlebinsky, executive director of the University of Wyoming Firearms Research Center.

    Some local jurors may not differentiate between handling a gun on a movie set or in real life. Persuading jury members, especially gun owners, that the revolver went off on its own could be a hard sell, said the firearms historian.

    Still, Hlebinsky sees a possible path to acquittal for Baldwin: namely, the argument his lawyers laid out in their motion to dismiss that the gun was modified to make it “easier to fire without pulling the trigger.” That motion is now being considered by a judge.

    “The defense just have to put doubt into the head of the jury,” said Hlebinksy, who has acted as a firearms expert in court cases on single action Colt .45-type revolvers similar to the “Rust” weapon. “I think they can definitely do that.”

    It was six weeks after the Oct. 21, 2021 shooting that Baldwin said in an ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos that he did not pull the trigger of the Italian-made gun.

    Days later, the actor told a New Mexico workplace safety inspector that the Pietta reproduction Colt Single Action Army revolver had no mechanical defect.

    Baldwin’s statement that the gun “went off” on its own, and his comment that it worked properly, are part of New Mexico state prosecutor Kari Morrissey’s assertion that the “30 Rock” actor has “lied with impunity” about details of the shooting.

    “They’re going to have to walk back from that statement a bit,” trial lawyer Neama Rahmani said of Baldwin’s legal team.

    The former federal prosecutor expected the actor’s lawyers to frame the incident as “an accidental discharge,” a term meaning the gun fired due to mechanical failure.

    He said it was an unusual though not unheard of legal position, most often employed in cases where a defendant was seeking to reduce a charge from murder to manslaughter.

    According to Baldwin’s lawyers, someone filed down the full-cock notch of the long Colt .45 after it was supplied brand new to the production, to make it easier to fire.

    Lucien Haag, an independent gun expert hired by the state, testified at Gutierrez’s trial that the full-cock notch was worn down and broken off by FBI testing, rather than filing.

    FBI tests of the gun found it was in normal working condition when it arrived at their lab in Quantico, Virginia, after the shooting. An investigator had to hit the hammer with a mallet to make it fire without pulling the trigger, the blows damaging the hammer and trigger, according to the FBI.

    Baldwin risks jeopardizing his credibility if he changes his story on the trigger, said lawyer Kate Mangels. She expected him to continue to blame others for firearm safety failures as prosecutors accuse him of negligence, both as an actor and the film’s most powerful producer.

    “At this juncture it would be difficult for Baldwin’s defense team to change course,” said Mangels, a partner at entertainment law firm Kinsella Holley Iser Kump Steinsapir.

    Hlebinsky, the firearms expert, said movie-set armorers she knows, who have seen pictures of the hammer on Baldwin’s gun, are uncertain whether the full cock notch was worn down by mallet blows or filing. She expected Baldwin’s legal team to find a firearms expert to testify it was the latter.

    “I don’t think anyone can say 100% what happened,” she said of the gun.

    (Reporting By Andrew Hay; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Aurora Ellis)

    Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters.

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  • Factbox-What’s Trump Worth? A Look at His Assets and Income

    Factbox-What’s Trump Worth? A Look at His Assets and Income

    NEW YORK (Reuters) – Former U.S. President Donald Trump faces a Monday deadline to post a bond covering a $454 million civil judgment against him in a New York state case, after a judge found he had overstated the value of his assets.

    His lawyers have told the court it is impossible for him to raise that much money. In a Friday post on Truth Social, his social media platform, Trump said he had done nothing wrong. Failure to post the bond could lead to New York Attorney General Letitia James seizing his assets.

    Trump’s lawyers did not respond to requests for a comment.

    Below is a breakdown of some of Trump’s assets and sources of income, based on court filings and federal financial disclosures. In some cases the values reported by Trump were disputed in the New York civil case, which the real estate billionaire plans to appeal.

    Trump said in the Truth Social post on Friday that he has “almost five hundred million dollars in cash.” In an April 2023 deposition with New York Attorney General Letitia James he said he had “substantially in excess of 400 million in cash.”

    That number has gone up from Trump’s previous disclosures. A June 30 2021 statement of financial condition that Trump submitted to the court showed that he had $293.8 million worth of cash and cash equivalents at the time.

    Trump has a variety of sources of income, financial disclosure forms filed with the federal government in August 2023 show.

    In 2022, Trump reported at least $537 million in revenues related to golf courses and hotels, $30.4 million in licensing fees and royalties, $26.5 million of management fees, and $61.1 million in distributions from his stake in buildings such as 1290 Avenue of the Americas in New York.

    Trump also made $6.2 million from speaking engagements and $116,103 in pension from the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. In addition, he reported $268.7 million proceeds from his Washington DC hotel, including a gain on the sale of the property, and nearly $1 million from the sale of two helicopters.

    Trump owns hotels, office buildings, residential buildings, golf courses and estates. A June 2021 financial statement listed several of his most valuable properties such as 40 Wall Street, an office building in New York, the Trump Tower in Manhattan, and the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. The financial statement said his properties were worth $4.3 billion at the time, while Trump owed a total of $439.2 million in loans and other liabilities. It said his net worth was $4.5 billion.

    Among his major properties, the document said golf clubs and other club facilities were worth $1.76 billion, New York buildings such as Trump Tower and Trump Plaza were worth $524.7 million and $33.4 million, and his stakes in two buildings jointly owned with Vornado were worth $645.6 million.

    In the New York case, the judge ruled Trump had overstated the value of some of those properties over the years, including inflating the value of 40 Wall Street by $120 million in 2015, and overstating the value of Seven Springs, a property in New York’s Westchester county, by $147 million in 2014. The judge called Trump’s estimated value of Mar-a-Lago “fraudulent” and wrote it is “possibly a billion dollars or more” over its market value.

    Truth Social is worth about $6 billion, based on how shares in a blank-check acquisition company it is set to merge with are trading. Trump’s shares in the combined company are currently worth about $3.6 billion, and the percentage of his stake could end up between 58.1% and 69.4%. Trump cannot sell his shares or borrow against them for six months after the merger is completed.

    (Reporting by Koh Gui Qing, Paritosh Bansal and Greg Roumeliotis; Editing by David Gregorio)

    Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters.

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