A judge has dismissed the case of a Sandy man accused of rape and kidnapping because the accuser failed to cooperate with prosecutors.

On Tuesday afternoon Jake James Machan, 26, appeared before Judge Fred Howard for a pretrial conference stemming from allegations that he raped a woman on Feb. 3. During the conference, Utah County prosecutor Chad Grunander asked the court to dismiss the case against Machan because prosecutors were unable to contact the accuser, who was a crucial witness in the case.

“Essentially we had nowhere to go,” Grunander said. “Our cases sort of rise and fall with the strength of the victim. At the minimum we need a level of cooperation that we weren’t getting.”

Documents Grunander filed in court on Tuesday state that prosecutors repeatedly sent letters to the woman, left messages on her phone and issued a subpoena for her to appear in court. She failed to respond to these efforts, and prosecutors were unable to adequately prepare for Machan’s mid-December jury trial. Grunander said that his office could legally compel the accuser to appear by issuing a warrant for her arrest, but that prosecutors wanted to avoid that option in this case.

“We’re not, in a sex abuse case, going to issue warrants for victims,” Grunander said.

Prosecutors are unsure why the woman resisted cooperation. She originally testified in May that after taking cold medication and drinking vodka she became drowsy and fell asleep in Machan’s car. She said that when she woke up all her clothing was off and Machan was raping her. Afterward, she said that Machan drove down a dirt road somewhere and she called 911, pretending to talk to her sister. She was able to direct dispatchers to the vehicle’s location during the conversation, and police soon arrived.

Ronald Yengich, Machan’s attorney, said the defense had contended from the beginning that the accuser wasn’t raped. Yengich said that he submitted evidence to the court of a relationship between Machan and the woman, and that if any sexual contact occurred between them it was consensual. He said that police may be too eager to make assumptions about potential victims in sexual abuse cases, but added that he felt Grunander and prosecutors acted honorably by dismissing the case when their witness stopped cooperating.

Grunander said that it was frustrating to dismiss what he saw as an important case, but that different people respond in different ways to sexual abuse and some victims never feel comfortable talking to prosecutors.

“I’m not in a place where I would pass judgement,” Grunander said. “No one can predict how they would react as a victim.”

As of Tuesday, the case is now closed, but Grunander said that as of 2009 there is no statute of limitations on rape cases in Utah, so the case could be reopened if new evidence is found or if the accuser decides to talk to prosecutors.