Prosecutors in Nantucket on Wednesday dropped a felony sexual assault charge against the actor Kevin Spacey, after watching their case against the actor slowly fall apart under scrutiny from Spacey’s defense team during months of contentious pre-trial hearings that unfolded in the resort island’s lone courtroom.

The decision to drop the charges followed a meeting between the accuser, his parents and prosecutors on Sunday, July 14, following a July 8 hearing in which the alleged victim exercised his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during a hearing in which he was testifying about his missing cell phone.

“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 released on Wednesday. “After a further period of reflection privately with his lawyer, the complaining witness elected not to waive his right under the Fifth Amendment.”

But the criminal case against Spacey appeared to be plagued nearly from the start by one stunning revelation after another about missteps by the case investigators, the prosecutors and the alleged victim’s relatives and civil attorney.

(MORE: The rise and fall of Kevin Spacey: A timeline of sexual assault allegations )

In October, 2017, the young man contacted the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s office to allege that 15 months earlier Spacey had plied him with beer and whiskey in July 2016 after the two met at the Club Car bar and restaurant in Nantucket, where the young man had worked that summer as a busboy, and sexually assaulted him. Read more

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Prosecutors in Nantucket on Wednesday dropped a felony sexual assault charge against the actor Kevin Spacey, after watching their case against the actor slowly fall apart under scrutiny from Spacey’s defense team during months of contentious pre-trial hearings that unfolded in the resort island’s lone courtroom.