Kevin Spacey Settles Suit After Accuser Dies

Kevin Spacey settled a suit brought against him by a sexual assault accuser following the anonymous plaintiff's death, according to a story in the Hollywood Reporter.

News of the settlement follows the death of another accuser, Ari Behn, who reports say took his own life on Christmas. UK newspaper The independent reported that Behn - the former husband of Princess Martha Louise of Norway - accused Spacey in 2017 of inappropriate touching a decade earlier.

The anonymous accuser, a massage therapist, claimed that Spacey had forced him to come into contact with the actor's genitals during a massage session. The Reporter story recounted that after the massage therapist died, Spacey's lawyers filed a "notice of death," which automatically opened a three-month window for the estate of the deceased to take up the suit.

The Independent reported that the massage therapist died in September, and said that it has been suggested that the accuser succumbed to cancer.

The accuser's son reportedly took up the case and decided to settle. Variety reports that "Each side agreed to pay their own costs," with any other stipulations that might have been part of the settlement not being made public.

Variety also reported that after the massage therapist's death, prosecutors decided not to seek criminal charges., Variety also detailed other legal developments affecting the former "House of Cards" actor:

Spacey had faced a separate criminal charge in Nantucket, stemming from an alleged groping of a busboy. That case was dropped in July, however, after the accuser in that case invoked his Fifth Amendment privileges during an evidentiary hearing. Spacey's attorneys had accused the man and his mother of tampering with text messages used as evidence in the case. That accuser also dropped a civil suit.

The Hollywood Reporter had also covered a Christmas Eve video in which Spacey - evidently adopting his "House of Cards" persona, despite his character having been killed off on that show - offered holiday greetings and suggested that viewers "kill them with kindness" as a way of responding to the provocations or misdeeds of others.