State prosecutors dropped a case against a 27-year-old Butler woman who was accused of threatening to kill Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger during a call to a suicide prevention hot line.

Brittany Hartos was arrested April 8, 2018, and placed in Butler County Prison in lieu of $100,000 bail. It was dropped to a nonmonetary bond the following month, allowing her to be released on pretrial supervision with the condition that she obey the recommendations from a completed psychological evaluation.

State police said Hartos made the threat during a telephone call to the National Crisis Hotline. She was arrested within hours of the call. The hotline also is known as the Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which is a confidential service that provides counseling and offers resources to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress.

The state Attorney General's Office was prosecuting the case since the county's district attorney was the alleged victim. Police originally charged Hartos with aggravated assault, a felony, and terroristic threats and simple assault, both misdemeanors.

Prosecutors eventually withdrew all of the charges except the terroristic threat. Then, on Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General Patrick Schulte, who is prosecuting the case for the state, dropped the case against Hartos.

In a prepared statement, the attorney general's office wrote, “When our office applied the law to the facts of this case, we could not proceed. Our office consulted with District Attorney Goldinger before withdrawing the prosecution, and he understood the decision. The Office of Attorney General will continue to investigate any threats of violence to keep all Pennsylvanians safe.”

Goldinger couldn't be reached for comment.

Hartos' lawyer, Victor Vouga, said he identified a lack of evidence as a weakness in the prosecution's case, possibly leading to the case's dismissal. He said that a key factor was that prosecutors were having a hard time tracking down information in the case.

In Schulte's court filing to drop the case, Vouga wrote that the state “cannot meet its burden of proof.”

“I have a lot of respect for a prosecutor who can see that and drop the case,” Vouga said.

Hartos faces a second case for harassment, a third-degree misdemeanor.

According to authorities, Hartos repeatedly harassed four employees with the county's Victim Outreach Intervention Center by phone between April 23 and Sept. 26, 2018. According to court documents, Hartos repeatedly made “vulgar calls” and “implied threats of violence” toward Linda Strachan, executive director of VOICe, and her three colleagues.

She also threatened to file formal complaints and civil lawsuits against the employees.

In all, police said, Hartos made more than 300 harassing and threatening phone calls, voicemails, text messages and emails.

Vouga said he's waiting for the prosecutor, also Schulte, to provide him with the case's material, known as discovery. Vouga said the dismissal of the one case does not affect the second one.

“We'll be moving along with that case,” Vouga said. “We should be able to get a resolution for that case, and if not we'll move it along to the trial process.”