How many falsely accused by the MeToo movement is too many? Or does that even matter?

 

With every setback of a “MeToo” accusation, we get the impression that rather than admit that some accusers lie or exaggerate out of vindictiveness or greed, comfortable in the assumption that what is claimed will be believed, the supporters of the “movement” always seem to double and triple-down. Accusers “never” lie: the accused “win” because of social media support and derision of the accuser. It doesn’t matter if the evidence points to innocence, or to the guilt of the accuser. Those audios in the Depp-Heard case that turned the opinions of most were simply not “heard” by those who did not want to hear the truth, let alone see it.

There is a saying that one man falsely convicted on death row is one too many; how many falsely accused by the MeToo movement is too many? What does it matter? The accusation alone is “guilt” enough, and unless the accuser actually comes out and says they lied, it doesn’t matter it the accused is judged innocent in a court of law—they still must be “guilty” to those with a personal and political agenda, usually one motivated by a narcissistic desire for "revenge" against society.

In the Los Angeles Times, Mary McNamara informs us that just because actor Kevin Spacey was acquitted of all nine charges of sexual abuse against four male accusers, doesn’t mean he should be “uncancelled.” 30 men have claimed he “abused” them in some way, she says, and even if Spacey has not been found guilty in any of the cases brought against him, the outstanding claims (and claims is all they are at this point) against him have not been “unproven,” so he is still technically “guilty.”

To recap: In October 2017, an actor named Anthony Rapp claimed that Spacey had, while intoxicated, had “groped” him at a party. Spacey later claimed that his initial response to this allegation which angered some people—that he was the “victim,” that he used intoxication as a “defense,” and suggested that he was being attacked because he was gay—was the idea of his publicist, and insisted it wasn’t his intent to belittle the accuser.

This started an avalanche of similar accusations against Spacey in both the U.S. and the UK. These accusations included members of the crew of the Netflix series House of Cards, which was in its sixth and final season; Spacey was fired with five episodes left to film, and the Netfix series on Gore Vidal starring Spacey was suspended; he was also cut from his role as J. Paul Getty in the film All the Money in the World. Spacey had by then been “outed” as gay, and thus given the fact that this case involved multiple angles of embarrassment for Netflix this was the kind of knee-jerk, rush to judgment that we would expect to see. After all, the “evidence” was “overwhelming.” Or was it the bad "PR"?

The production company MRC filed a multi-million dollar claim against Spacey and his production company for violating its sexual harassment policy (all the alleged victims were male), and Spacey and his company were forced to pay $31 million after arbitration, which of course did not require an examination of the evidence, but the effect of the accusations on business; Spacey subsequently lost  his appeal of the judgment. 

But one must note that Netflix acted not only before any of these accusations had been adjudicated in a court of law, either criminal or civil, but for the self-serving reason for its own “protection.” Spacey, however, didn’t make things any easier for himself by releasing a YouTube video in which he denied the accusations, which some people found “creepy.”

What happened after that? Every civil and criminal case brought against Spacey was either dismissed or found in Spacey’s favor; not in one single case brought to court was the accusers’ case found to be truthful or backed by evidence. Heather Unruh’s claimed that Spacey had groped her son in a car, who himself claimed he was texting his girlfriend while this happening. 

When Spacey’s attorneys demanded the phone and the texts as evidence, Unruh admitted that she had given the phone to police after deleting the text messages. The criminal case was dismissed when the alleged victim then refused to testify, and his subsequent civil claim of emotional damage was also “voluntarily” dismissed for the same reason.

In 2020 Rapp and another alleged victim filed a civil case against Spacey. The latter case was dismissed when the anonymous accuser refused to cooperate with prosecutors, and during the trial that followed, Rapp was found to have lied about (among other things) where the alleged abuse incident occurred, and a jury found in favor of Spacey.

In the UK trial that just ended, of the four accusers, three were proven to be motivated by financial considerations, and the claims made by a fourth were deemed unreliable because he was in an intoxicated state (the others were also accused of such) at the time. Elton John came forward to testify that Spacey was not at a gala party where one of the accusers (a chauffeur) claimed that he and Spacey were driving to when the alleged abuse incident occurred; Spacey provided evidence that he was not even in the UK at the time of that alleged incident. Jack Lemon’s son would testify to Spacey’s supposedly blameless character.

Spacey testified on his own behalf: "There was a rush to judgment and before the first question was asked or answered, I lost my job, I lost my reputation, I lost everything in a matter of days." He went on to claim that his “friendly” behavior was “misinterpreted” and it was never his intention to abuse or make anyone feel “uncomfortable.”

Unlike in the U.S., the UK jury system does not require a unanimous verdict, and once it was revealed that the jury was “deadlocked,” the judge allowed the jury vote of 10-2 for acquittal on all charges to stand as the verdict. Afterwards, a tearful Spacey told reporters that he hoped he could get his life and career back on track, which seems like it will be a tough row to how at this point.

One wonders if Depp’s UK trial would have also have ended in his favor if it was held before a jury of average people who could smell a rat when they saw one, instead of a judge who was clearly biased in favor of Amber Heard. In any case, what we’ve learned from the Spacey case is that despite the fact that the media made it appear that the odds were 100 percent against him in each court of law he was charged in, somehow Spacey prevailed. 

But what does that mean?  We are told (again) that the not guilty verdicts will have a “chilling effect” against other accusers against other men (male accusers of women are of course always lying); if there is a “chilling effect” if ought to be to accusers who are lying for reasons of vindictiveness, or seeking their 15 minutes of fame, or a payday.

As noted, I think regardless of what you think of the guilt or innocence of Spacey, we are still supposed to live in a society where you are innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. What is even more disturbing is that for many people, the accusation is still the only thing that is important, not the motivations or the truth behind it.