Kevin Spacey Hopes To Avoid Appearing At Nantucket Arraignment

NANTUCKET, MA – Attorneys for Kevin Spacey have filed a motion asking to excuse him from appearing at his arraignment in Nantucket District Court, according to the Boston Globe. Prosecutors opposed the motion and have asked the judge to deny it.

The 59-year-old actor is scheduled to be arraigned Jan. 7 on a charge of indecent assault and battery. He will be required to appear in court unless a judge waives his appearance, the Globe reported.

He is accused of groping an 18-year-old man at a Nantucket restaurant in 2016. The case came to light the following year when former Boston news anchor Heather Unruh said Spacey had groped her son.

According to court records, the man caught part of his encounter with Spacey on video. He sent a video via Snapchat to his girlfriend that allegedly showed Spacey touching the front of his pants, according to a state police report filed in Nantucket District Court and obtained by the Cape Cod Times.

Spacey's lawyers said at a show-cause hearing last week the video shows someone's hand touching another person's shirt, but does not show anyone being groped, according to the Boston Globe, which obtained an audio recording of the hearing.

In trying to get a court clerk magistrate to rule there wasn't enough evidence for Spacey to be charged, Los Angeles-based attorney Alan Jackson pointed out that Unruh's son did not report the allegations to police right way, lied about his age by saying he was 23, and said he was so intoxicated he may have blacked out shortly after Spacey allegedly groped him. Jackson also said Unruh's son made no effort to move away from Spacey.

Unruh said in a news conference last year that her son didn't go to authorities sooner because of fear and embarrassment.

The alleged victim told police that it was hard to move away in the crowded restaurant, where he worked as a bus boy but was off duty at the time.

Neither Spacey nor his lawyers have addressed the allegation publicly, but Spacey did release a video Monday in the voice of Frank Underwood, his character on Netflix's "House of Cards" in which he said, "I'm certainly not going to pay the price for the thing I didn't do."

It was unclear whether he was addressing the criminal charge.

If convicted, Spacey faces up to five years in prison.

Materials from the Associated Press were used in this story. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)