The criminal sexual assault case against Kevin Spacey in Massachusetts has been dropped, according to court filings by Nantucket District Attorney Michael O’Keefe on Wednesday.
The charge of felony indecent assault and battery was dropped due to “the unavailability of the complaining witness.” The unnamed accuser, who claimed that Spacey groped him at a Nantucket bar three years ago, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights during a pre-trial hearing last week.
During the hearing, Spacey’s attorney, Alan Jackson, asked the accuser about the location of a phone he used to send text messages about the incident, some of which Spacey’s attorneys say have been deleted and show that the accuser “exaggerated” his telling of the bar encounter.
“On one of the screenshots, one half of the conversation is missing, but I did not delete anything,” the accuser testified. “I gave what I had available at the time. I did not manipulate any of that.”
After a court recess, the accuser refused to testify further. While the presiding judge denied a motion by Spacey’s counsel to dismiss the case, he acknowledged that without further testimony from the accuser he didn’t know “whether the case is going to continue or collapse.”
Three days prior to the hearing, a civil case filed by the accuser’s family was dropped “because of the emotional roller coaster my client is on,” according to their attorney Mitchell Garabedian.
In a statement on Wednesday, Garabedian said, “My client and his family have shown an enormous amount of courage under difficult circumstances.”
A rep for Spacey did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
While Spacey is no longer facing jail time for this accusation, he is still being investigated in London in connection to six accusations of sexual harassment and assault in London while the actor was artistic director of the Old Vic Theatre from 2004 to 2015. The actor has been questioned by Scotland Yard as part of that investigation.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.