Prosecutors Drop Criminal Charges Against Actor Kevin Spacey In Sexual Assault Case

Prosecutors have dropped a criminal case against Kevin Spacey in which the actor was accused of sexually assaulting an 18-year-old man in Nantucket, Mass.

Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe said, in court documents filed Wednesday, he was abandoning the case "due to the unavailability of the complaining witness."

The case began to fall apart after the alleged victim decided to stop testifying, invoking the 5th Amendment on the witness stand last week.

The case stems from an accusation by the man, who was a busboy at a restaurant in 2016, that Spacey got him drunk then groped him for several minutes.

The Academy-Award-winning star had pleaded not guilty. If convicted he faced up to five years in prison.

The fatal blow to the case happened during an evidentiary hearing as the defense was grilling the accuser about the cellphone he was using on the night he said he was assaulted. They argued the man had deleted text chains with the actor, that would have shown he was innocent.

After a break in proceedings, the accuser's lawyers said he was pleading the Fifth in order to not incriminate himself.

The man's attorney, Mitchell Garabedian, said in an emailed statement, "My client and his family have shown an enormous amount of courage under difficult circumstances."

Spacey's accuser dropped a civil lawsuit on July 5. [Copyright 2019 NPR]