Prosecutors drop charges against Kevin Spacey

US prosecutors have dropped a case accusing Kevin Spacey of groping an 18-year-old man.

Kevin Spacey with his lawyer at a pre-trial hearing at district court in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Picture; AP.

US prosecutors have dropped a case accusing Kevin Spacey of groping 18-year-old man at Massachusetts resort island bar in 2016. The case proved weak last week when the accuser decided to plead the Fifth Amendment in the middle of his testimony in court.

Michael O’Keefe, a prosecutor with the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s Office, said in a court filing that the office was dropping the prosecution “due to the unavailability of the complaining witness.”

Spacey’s lawyers had previously accused the man of deleting text messages that would support the actor’s defence.

Spacey, who won an Academy Award in 2000 for his role in American Beauty, had pleaded not guilty to the charge and his lawyers had called the allegations “patently false”.

Lawyers for Spacey and the accuser did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The 59-year-old actor was one of dozens of men in the entertainment industry, business and politics who have been accused of sexual misconduct following the emergence of the #MeToo movement in 2017. It was one of a number of claims of sexual misconduct made against Spacey but the only one that resulted in criminal prosecution.

Prosecutors charged Spacey in the Nantucket case in December. The accuser told police Spacey had bought him several rounds of beer and whiskey at the Club Car Restaurant on Nantucket in July 2016 when he was 18 and said at one point “let’s get drunk”, according to charging documents. As they stood next to a piano, Spacey groped him, the accuser told investigators.

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