By TED SHAFFREY
NEW YORK (AP) — On Thursday morning, photographers and videographers hovered outside in the walkway between two large old courthouses in lower Manhattan. Which Oscar winner named in #MeToo lawsuits would arrive first? Actor Kevin Spacey? Screenwriter and director Paul Haggis?
This morning, it was Haggis at 8:59 a.m., going through the back entrance of 60 Centre Street. Minutes later, at 9:12 a.m., Spacey arrived, exiting a black SUV with a security detail and entering the federal courthouse next door at 500 Pearl Street, where Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernie Madoff pled guilty more than a decade ago. Hours later, a jury would conclude that Spacey did not molest accuser Anthony Rapp.
Camera-toting members of the media sometimes seem to draw a mixture of disgust, fear and fascination from their subjects. Spacey is impervious to shouted questions from the media scrum, declining to throw as much as a glance at the waiting journalists. Haggis doesn’t respond to questions, either, but generally still chooses to go in through the back of the courthouse, in view of the journalists who have been staking out Spacey for weeks.
On Wednesday, though, the security line was too long so a half-dozen media members wound through myriad temporary security fences as Haggis, known for “Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash,” went around and up the front steps famous from…
