Kevin Spacey Wants Judge to Throw Out Sexual Assault Case

Kevin Spacey's sexual assault case took a stunning turn Monday ... when the alleged victim pled the 5th during questioning, prompting the judge to strike the accuser's previous testimony from the record.

The actor's lawyers asked the judge in Nantucket District Court to dismiss the case claiming the entire case is now completely compromised after the alleged victim exercised his Fifth Amendment right to not testify during intense questioning.

The judge said he would allow prosecutors time to figure out how they wanna proceed moving forward but reportedly added, "It may be pretty hard to get around this in trial. The matter may well be dismissed for the reason indicated. It's not going to happen today."

Spacey's team also wants the judge to dismiss the case after the alleged victim's mother, Heather Unruh, was supposed to be sequestered but reportedly watched her son's testimony on a TV monitor in the courthouse.

The pretrial hearing largely focused on the the whereabouts of the accuser's phone. Spacey's lawyers want it to examine the phone and the information it holds, but nobody knows where it is.

As we reported ... the accuser alleged Spacey was getting him drunk and grabbing his genitals. The alleged victim said he was texting his then-girlfriend during the alleged 2016 encounter at a Nantucket bar. The string of text messages were included in a recent court filing.

Spacey's team thinks the texts don't tell the whole story, particularly because most of the texts lack time stamps and it's possible the accuser may have deleted other texts that could change the context of the convo.