An Erie man accused by police of committing two assaults and robberies in an eastside neighborhood in early May is no longer facing criminal charges after a magisterial district judge on Wednesday dismissed the two criminal cases against him.
Senior District Judge Ronald Antos dismissed charges including felony counts of robbery that 36-year-old Steve J. Smith faced in the two cases at Smith s preliminary hearings on Wednesday afternoon.
The victims in the two cases did not appear for the hearings, Smith s lawyer, James Pitonyak, said Thursday.
Smith had been in the Erie County Prison on $75,000 in bonds since his arraignments on May 20 on charges in the two robberies, which Erie police said happened about 40 minutes apart on the evening of May 9 in the 1000 block of Hess Avenue.