Kevin Spacey trial: No surveillance video, but plenty of fireworks over accuser's phone data

Surveillance footage from the night actor Kevin Spacey allegedly groped a teen at a Nantucket bar does not exist, lawyers learned during a pretrial hearing. Judge Thomas Barrett ordered last week that the bar, The Club Car, produce the footage Monday, only to learn there is none. Instead, the action revolved around the accuser’s and his mother’s phone records. In last week’s hearing, Barrett allowed a defense request to examine the contents of the accuser’s phone from July 7, 2016 to December 31, 2017 and denied a defense request for the mother’s phone records. Spacey, 59, is accused of groping an 18-year-old busboy on a July 2016 evening at the bar. In January, he pleaded not guilty to indecent assault and battery, a felony charge that comes with up to five years in prison. On Monday, defense attorney Alan Jackson made a fresh request for the phone data, accusing the prosecution of making “misrepresentations,” which an assistant district attorney denied. Prosecutors, Jackson alleged, had the accuser’s phone information for more than a year and conducted a forensic download of the data, all while hiding the details from the defense. “It is inexcusable,” Jackson said. “It’s outrageous, and it should never, ever happen in a court of law.” A report provided to the defense Monday says the accuser’s mom removed phone information related to her son’s “frat boy activities” before providing the phone to police, he said. “Are you kidding?” Jackson asked. “He and or his mother deleted the exculpatory texts that were on the phone.” The defense attorney further said that rather than providing the text exchanges in their entirety, the accuser took screenshots of texts that supported his accusations – and “that was the foundation on which these charges were filed.” He flatly accused the alleged victim and his mother of deleting information they wanted to keep from police and Spacey’s attorneys. Some of the texts were deleted at 1:41 a.m. on July 8, 2016, shortly after the incident allegedly occurred, Jackson said. He added that the accuser deleted texts before and after providing screenshots to police. “We know unequivocally that the forensic report is not accurate,” Jackson said. The file turned over to the defense Monday is not large enough to contain a complete forensic download of the accuser’s phone, he said. Thus, the defense again requested the mother’s phone records because, Jackson said, she acknowledged deleting material from her son’s phone. The phone also contains conversations between her and a prosecutor’s sister, which the defense would like to see, Jackson said. First Assistant District Attorney Brian Glenny said the prosecution would’ve provided the file earlier but needed to wait on a protective order to be signed. Before turning it over, prosecutors needed to go through the phone to determine if the court needed to address any matters, Glenny said, adding that prosecutors explained at a previous hearing that they would need until June to finish their work on the phone. The prosecution has already provided much of what the defense team wanted, Glenny said. The rest is “fodder for another day,” and any confusion was a product of miscommunication, he said. Jackson wasn’t having it, again requesting the accuser’s and his mother’s actual phones and all the data they contained. “The shenanigans that have gone on the government’s side are outrageous, unjustified and inexcusable,” he said. “There is a new revelation every single time we come back to this courthouse.” Glenny denied that prosecutors had made any misrepresentations to Spacey’s team. Jackson also demanded a speedy trial during the hearing, but Judge Barrett said it would not likely happen in the next eight weeks, as the defense requested. “It’s not happening in August. Whether it can happen in October or November, that remains to be seen,” Barrett said. Spacey spoke privately to his attorneys and to deputies but did not speak in open court during the proceeding. Wearing a grey suit, black glasses and a light blue tie, the two-time Academy Award winner smiled to reporters but did not respond to a CNN producer’s question on his way into the courthouse. The next hearing is scheduled for July 8.

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Kevin Spacey trial: No surveillance video, but plenty of fireworks over accuser’s phone data