THE FIRST WITNESS at a civil trial in which Kevin Spacey is accused of making a sexual advance on a 14-year-old boy in the mid-1980s has testified that Spacey made a similar move on him years earlier.

Andrew Holtzman was called to testify by lawyers for actor Anthony Rapp, who is seeking $40 million in damages for the psychological injuries he says he sustained as a result of an encounter with Spacey after a party in 1986.

Rapp, 50, began testifying on Friday, but the jury was sent to lunch after several minutes in which Rapp provided biographical information about himself.

Rapp’s claims were first made publicly in 2017. At the time, Spacey was starring in Netflix’s political thriller House Of Cards. He is also known for his role in the 1999 film American Beauty, which won him an Academy Award.

As a teenager, Rapp acted in films including Adventures In Babysitting. He was later part of the original Broadway cast of Rent, and is now a regular on Star Trek: Discovery on television.

During opening statements on Thursday, Rapp’s lawyers told the Manhattan federal court jury that they will prove that Spacey picked up Rapp, placed him on a bed in his apartment and climbed on top of him before Rapp wriggled away and fled the apartment. At the time, Spacey was 26.

Holtzman, now 68, testified that he was working in his office at the New York Shakespeare Festival in the summer of 1981 when Spacey entered and sat at a spare desk used by actors and others who worked for the company of seven theatres.

Holtzman said Spacey did not say anything when he entered the office in a windbreaker, “tight blue jeans”, and carrying a leather shoulder bag, but he recalled knowing him because he’d seen his picture in the programme for a play, Henry IV, in which Spacey was performing at the time.

As he finished a telephone call, Holtzman stood up at his desk and a “sexually aroused” Spacey walked over to him, lifted him up by the crotch and put him on the desk, Holtzman recalled.

“What are you doing? Get off of me,” he said he told Spacey.

“I could feel his erection on my body,” Holtzman said.

After a few more minutes, Spacey got off him, grabbed his windbreaker and bag and stormed from the office, Holtzman said.

“He was angry,” he said.

On cross examination, a lawyer for Spacey, 63, showed Holtzman six pages of a programme for Henry IV and Holtzman said he did not see Spacey’s photograph.

The case continues.