Sexual Assault Case Against Kevin Spacey Dropped But Allegations Remain

A sexual assault case against Kevin Spacey was dropped on Wednesday, but the actor still faces a slew of similar allegations.

Prosecutors in Nantucket decided not to pursue their felony sexual assault case against Spacey after a series of events involving his accuser in recent months. The alleged victim pleaded the Fifth Amendment during a court hearing on July 8 when Spacey’s attorney was grilling him about his missing cell phone, ABC News reported.

“The complaining witness was informed that if he chose to continue to invoke his Fifth Amendment right, the case would not be able to go forward,” Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe said in a statement. “After a further period of reflection privately with his lawyer, the complaining witness elected not to waive his right under the Fifth Amendment.”

The accuser’s initial claim, made in October 2017, was that Spacey plied him with beer and whiskey in July 2016 at the Club Car bar and restaurant in Nantucket, where the young man worked as a busboy. He said that Spacey sexually assaulted him that evening by touching his genitals, and that he had texting his girlfriend about the incident, as well as sent her and other friends Snapchat videos of the interaction.

But authorities later found out that the accuser’s mother deleted some of the texts on his phone before the police could see the exchange. After that, the phone vanished and the accuser pleaded the Fifth when asked about it last week, prompting prosecutors to end their case against the actor, according to ABC.

The first claim against Spacey was made by fellow actor Anthony Rapp, also in October 2017. Rapp said that Spacey “made sexual advances towards him” in 1986, when he was 14 and Spacey was 26. After that allegation, the floodgates opened and more than 20 young men came forward with their stories of inappropriate behavior (including on the set of his former Netflix show, House of Cards, from which he was later fired), though none have led to official charges.

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