Kevin Spacey is facing a charge of indecent assault and battery in relation to alleged sexual misconduct at a restaurant in Nantucket, Massachusetts, in July 2016, officials said on Monday.

The assault charge relates to allegations that Spacey sexually assaulted the teenage son of Heather Unruh, who was formerly a TV news anchor in Boston, the Boston Globe reported.

Spacey, who was dropped from the Netflix series House of Cards after allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced, is expected in Nantucket district court on 7 January for his arraignment.

Michael O’Keefe, prosecutor for the Cape & Islands District, said in a statement that the Nantucket district court clerk magistrate Brian Kearney issued the criminal complaint against Spacey on 20 December, following a “public show cause hearing”.

A representative for Spacey could not immediately be reached for comment.

According to the Boston Globe, the charge against Spacey is a felony.

After more than a year out of the limelight following multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, Spacey re-emerged on Monday with a bizarre video posted on YouTube and Twitter titled Let Me Be Frank, in which he appeared to reprise his character of President Frank Underwood from House of Cards.

Let Me Be Frank https://t.co/OzVGsX6Xbz — Kevin Spacey (@KevinSpacey) December 24, 2018

“Of course, some believed everything and have just been waiting with bated breath to hear me confess it all,” Spacey says in the video, in which he wears a Santa Claus-pattern kitchen apron.

“They’re just dying to have me declare that everything said is true and that I got what I deserved.

“But you wouldn’t believe the worst without evidence, would you? You wouldn’t rush to judgment without facts, would you? … Did you?

“No, not you, you’re smarter than that,” his character also said, addressing the viewer.

Spacey reportedly posted the monologue after the charges were made public.

“If I didn’t pay the price for the things we both know I did do, I’m certainly not going to pay the price for the things I didn’t do,” he says in it.

Unruh went public in November 2017 with allegations that Spacey slipped his hand down her then 18-year-old son’s pants, and then touched his genitals, at the Club Car Restaurant the preceding summer.

When Spacey went to use the restaurant’s bathroom, her son fled. He did not disclose the incident due to embarrassment, Unruh said.

Mitchell Garabedian, a lawyer representing Spacey’s accuser, said in a statement: “Let the facts be presented, the relevant law applied and a just and fair verdict rendered.”

Prosecutors are separately reviewing allegations that Spacey attacked a man in Malibu, California in October 2016. Police in the UK have also investigated Spacey for alleged sexual assault.

Spacey’s latest film, Billionaire Boys Club, which he made before the sexual assault allegations, was considered a record-setting flop, taking in just $126 (£98) on its opening night.