Prosecutors drop sexual assault charges against Kevin Spacey

Massachusetts prosecutors have dropped sexual assault charges against actor Kevin Spacey.

Spacey was accused of groping an 18-year-old man in Nantucket in 2016, prompting prosecutors to bring indecent assault and battery charges against him. Yet those charges were dropped in entirety due to the "unavailability of the complaining witness," the Nantucket District Court wrote in its Wednesday filing.

The alleged assault was originally reported to police in October 2016, but was made public in 2017, after actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of making an advance toward him when he was 14 and Spacey was 26. Police investigating the Nantucket incident said the accuser took video of the event, but after Spacey pleaded not guilty and the trial continued on, just where that footage and cell phone ended up came into question. The accuser pleaded his Fifth Amendment rights regarding the status of the phone, prompting Spacey's lawyer to move to have what he called a "compromised" case dismissed altogether.

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Spacey at the time said he didn't remember the incident with Rapp, but apologized for what he called "drunken behavior." Spacey was then cut from his starring role in the final season of the Netflix show House of Cards, and several more allegations against him soon surfaced.