FORT WORTH, Texas -- Tarrant County prosecutors threw out the case against Louis Vogel on Monday. Vogel was accused of taking photographs at Southlake's Octoberfest for sexual gratification.
Prosecutors who reviewed the photos said police got it wrong and that there was nothing improper with his photos.
Vogel was arrested under a new state law that makes it a crime to take unauthorized pictures for sexual gratification. At the time, police said Vogel zeroed in on specific body parts of strangers.
But prosecutors say Vogel simply snapped photos of the crowd and that none appeared sexual in nature.
A lot of the photographs frankly are crowd scenes, some of them are artistic photographs. There's a little series of photographs of a table and a balloon," said Kurt Stallings, Tarrant County Prosecutor.
Vogel spent nearly 24 hours in jail before bonding out, and his mug shot appeared in TV and Internet news stories.
"What I wish they had done was print out the pictures and taken a good, hard look at them and given us a call," said Stallings.
"I'm not surprised the case was dismissed. I think what happened here was that the legislature passed a law that was vague and overbroad and then a police officer took that law and used it arbitrarily and wound up causing great harm to a citizen here in our community," said Lance Evans, Vogel's attorney.
With respect to Mr. Vogel, "I can offer him the apologies of the criminal justice system. It's of no comfort to him, but it would hopefully be of comfort to others for me to note that the criminal justice system, however belatedly, did work here," said Stallings.
The prosecutor said the system ultimately worked because Vogel was never formally charged.