BLUE RIDGE, Ga. – Felony charges were dismissed Monday against a small town Georgia newspaper publisher who had angered a local judge by filing a public records request for court financial details.

Publisher Mark Thomason of the weekly newspaper Fannin Focus had been accused by Judge Brenda Weaver of attempted identity theft for requesting copies of her bank records to determine if she had paid a court stenographer’s legal expenses in a failed defamation suit against Thomason.

The judge requested the district attorney indict Thomason because she said his records request questioned her honesty and was part of a personal vendetta.

Sheriff’s deputies handcuffed and hustled Thomason in a police cruiser to the county jail three weeks ago, where he was fingerprinted, strip searched and locked up overnight. He was also forbidden from coming within 200 yards of potential witnesses, all of whom worked at the county courthouse and thus curtailed news coverage of the courthouse.

Thomason said it was an attempt to intimidate him and a violation of his First Amendment rights. Media organizations, including the Georgia Society of Professional Journalists, rallied to Thomason’s defense, causing the judge and the prosecutor to submit a motion to dismiss the case on Friday.

A senior state judge, Richard Winegarden, accepted the motion Monday, formally ending the case against Thomason and his attorney, who had filed a court motion for access to the requested records.