A Massachusetts prosecutor dropped the sexual assault charges against actor Kevin Spacey on Wednesday, after the accuser declined to testify at a pre-trial hearing.
The charges stemmed from a complaint filed by a then-18-year-old man in 2017, accusing Spacey of groping him at a bar in Nantucket, Massachusetts in 2016. After a pre-trial hearing earlier this month, the accuser invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to testify further. The district attorney’s office said Wednesday that they met with the accuser and told him the case could not proceed if he chose not to not testify. “After a further period of selection privately with his lawyer, the complaining witness elected not to waive his right under the Fifth Amendment,” the office said. Nantucket District Attorney Michael O’Keefe then dismissed the charges of indecent assault and battery on Wednesday, citing the “unavailability of the complaining witness.”
The Nantucket case is the first of more than a dozen allegations of sexual misconduct against Spacey.
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