Former Boston TV news anchor Heather Unruh held a press conference today, in which she read a statement from her 18-year-old son accusing Kevin Spacey of sexual assault. Unruh, an award-winning journalist for ABC affiliate WCVB, was accompanied by her daughter while addressing reporters, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The alleged assault took place last year, and in the time since, Unruh felt she’d had to bite her tongue about Spacey when seeing him hosting awards shows or being honored: “I have wanted to say something for a very long time, especially moments like when Kevin Spacey has the honor of hosting something like the Tony Awards and is celebrated as a man and an actor.”
Unruh first spoke out about Spacey on October 13, though she did not indicate her son was his alleged victim.
As Unruh told reporters today, her “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.” Spacey reportedly bought the teen “drink after drink” before assaulting him. “Spacey stuck his hand inside my son’s pants and grabbed his genitals,” the former anchor said. The 18-year-old “panicked, he froze. He was intoxicated.” When a woman caught up with Unruh’s son and told him to leave the Nantucket bar, he fled to his grandmother’s home.
Although Unruh’s son didn’t report the crime at the time “largely because of embarrassment and fear,” the family filed a police report just last week. Unruh said an investigation is underway, but Nantucket police could neither confirm nor deny that to THR.