Criminal charges against the two Mercer County School District IT workers who were arrested along with Superintendent Tim Farquer have been dismissed.
Court records indicate the prosecution filed a motion to dismiss all charges against Amberly Norton and Andrea Long, both 42, on Wednesday. They were each facing a Class 3 felony of official misconduct and Class A misdemeanors of computer tampering and unauthorized access to medical records. Norton and Long have been on administrative leave from their positions with the Mercer County School District.
Norton, Long, and Farquer were originally arrested last September following an Aledo Police Department investigation into a complaint accusing Mercer County School District employees of illegally accessing students’ medical records that was made by a school nurse.
Farquer was acquitted of all criminal charges against him in July when a judge ruled in favor of his defense’s request for a judgment of acquittal in a bench trial, saying the prosecution did not present enough evidence for a reasonable jury or judge to find the defendant guilty after it rested its case. Farquer was reinstated from administrative leave as superintendent of the Mercer County School District last month.
The City of Aledo, Aledo Police Department, and Mercer County State’s Attorney’s Office announced the arrests last year in a press release through the City of Aledo’s public relations firm in North Carolina, something the three entities have not collaborated to do together since. No convictions came from the investigation.