LAKEPORT, Calif. – The charges against a Rohnert Park man in connection with a 2009 torture case were officially dropped on Friday, while preparations for a co-defendant's trial are moving forward.

 

Joshua Isaac Wandrey Sr., 36, appeared before Judge Arthur Mann Friday morning, at which time Mann approved a motion by prosecutor Art Grothe, filed last week, to dismiss several felony charges.

 

Grothe had stated in his motion that he reviewed the case after taking it over last month from outgoing District Attorney Jon Hopkins and determined that there wasn't sufficient motion to proceed, an action lauded as the right thing to do by Wandrey's attorney, Stephen Carter.

 

However, Grothe did note that the investigation is continuing and charges could be brought against Wandrey again if sufficient new evidence is developed.

 

Wandrey was charged with attempted murder, mayhem, torture, home invasion robbery, burglary, assault with a firearm, assault likely to cause great bodily injury, a special allegation for alleged gang activity and another special allegation for use of a firearm for the October 2009 assault on Lakeport resident Ronald Greiner.

 

In a morning attack the 49-year-old Greiner was shot, beaten, hogtied with barbed wire and robbed of 10 pounds of marijuana at his home.

 

The investigation led to the arrest of several subjects, some of whose cases already have been dismissed, but the main case continued against Wandrey and Thomas Loyd Dudney, 60, of Fulton, who faced the same list of charges as Wandrey did.

 

Wandrey, who has been in jail since his November 2009 arrest, remained in the Lake County Jail Friday night, according to jail records.

 

Meanwhile, the case against Dudney is moving forward.

 

He appeared in court Friday morning at the same time as Wandrey and accompanied by his attorney, Doug Rhoades.

 

Mann said the trial had been assigned to him and was set to begin on the morning of Tuesday, Jan. 25.

 

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