PANAMA CITY — A judge dismissed several felony charges Thursday against a man and a woman suspected of meth trafficking after the state abandoned an appeal of the judge’s order to suppress key evidence in the case.
Prosecutor Bob Pell said the state had no objection to a defense motion to dismiss charges against Paul Dan Smith III and Audrey Landree, and Judge Elijah Smiley dismissed the charges against them.
Investigators with the sheriff’s office’s Criminal Investigation Division knew Smith as “Whiskey” and suspected he was perhaps the biggest distributor of high quality methamphetamine in Bay County when they arrested him outside a Panama City Beach home on a warrant that had been recalled weeks earlier.
Landree, a Gulf War veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD, also was charged with meth trafficking, a first-degree felony with a minimum mandatory sentence and a maximum sentence of 30 years.
Landree and Smith argued the evidence against them was seized by deputies who entered their house without a search warrant.
In September, Smiley sided with the defense and ordered evidence seized by investigators, including 100 grams of meth, suppressed. Both were released from jail while prosecutors appealed Smiley’s ruling, and both were rearrested on new charges within the month.
Smith was charged with battery for badly beating a neighbor, a charge to which he pleaded no contest and was sentenced to two years in prison.
Landree was arrested the day after the beating on accusations of tampering with the victim, and the charge is still pending. She allegedly sent someone to the neighbor with $3,000 cash to get his teeth fixed.
When the victim declined the messenger allegedly said “he really needed to think about the offer, that there could be serious consequences,” according to an arrest report.
Landree has pleaded not guilty.