NANTUCKET, MA — The sexual assault case against Kevin Spacey on Nantucket has been dropped, the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday. The actor was accused of groping an 18-year-old man at a Nantucket bar in 2016.

Prosecutors dropped the case due to the “unavailability of the complaining witness,” referencing the accuser, according to court documents. Spacey was charged with felony indecent assault and battery after former Boston news anchor Heather Unruh publicly accused him of groping her son in 2017.

After taking the stand at a tense hearing on Nantucket earlier this month, the now-21-year-old man invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, striking his testimony from the record and muddying the state’s case.

Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe’s office said prosecutors met with the accuser, his attorney and his family Sunday. The accuser was told the case could not proceed if he continued to invoke his Fifth Amendment right, but he elected not to waive it, according to O’Keefe’s office.

“My client and his family have shown an enormous amount of courage under difficult circumstances,” the accuser’s attorney, Mitchell Garabedian, said in a statement. “I have no further comment at this time.”

At the center of the hearing was a cellphone the accuser and his family were unable to find. Spacey’s attorneys were granted access to the phone after they argued exculpatory text messages from the night of his encounter with the actor were deleted. The defense said texts between the man and his girlfriend at the time show the man “continued to accept drinks” from Spacey after “boasting” that the actor had touched him.

Garabedian said a backup was recovered from July-December 2016, which included one of two videos sought by the defense. Spacey was accused of groping the man at the Club Car restaurant in July 2016.

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The July 8 hearing also included heated testimony from the accuser’s father and questions over whether his mother was watching it on TV when she was supposed to be sequestered.

Spacey’s accuser dropped a civil lawsuit against the actor July 5, eight days after filing it in Nantucket Superior Court. Garabedian said the suit was voluntarily dismissed due to the “emotional toll” the case has taken on the accuser. Unruh testified that there was no settlement in the civil case.

This is a developing story. Check back with Patch for updates.

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