Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell at the 91st annual Academy Awards; ABC/Craig Sjodin(LOS ANGELES) — The criminal case against the man accused of stealing actress Frances McDormand’s Oscar from a table at the Governors Ball after the 2018 Academy Awards has been dismissed, according to Deadline.
“The District Attorney’s Office today told the court that we are unable to proceed at this time,” a spokesperson for D.A. Jackie Lacey said Tuesday. “The defense made a motion to dismiss the case, and Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta dismissed it,” the D.A’s office added. “We don’t have further comment.”
The suspect, Terry Bryant, 48, had been facing a felony grand theft charge. He was out on $20,000 bail after being arrested on March 6, 2018 and faced a maximum of three years in county jail if convicted.
Despite witnesses testifying to the theft — which was caught on camera — and Bryant shooting a video of himself holding the Oscar at the Motion Picture Academy-sponsored after-party and posting it online, he has maintained his innocence, insisting he meant it all as a joke.
McDormand and her Oscar “were happily reunited after a brief separation,” the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences wrote in a statement obtained by ABC at the time.
McDormand won the Best Actress Oscar, her second, for her role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. She’d previously won for her role as pregnant police chief Marge Gunderson in the 1996 dark comedy, Fargo.
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