Charges have been dropped against a Lawrence arborist who’d been accused of financially exploiting a retired Kansas University professor and his wife.

The arborist’s attorney says prosecutors cast too wide a net as they tried to right the wrongs against William and Shirley Griffith, a now-deceased couple who were bilked of more than $70,000 by an in-home caregiver.

The case shows it can be difficult for investigators to sort unreasonable payments from reasonable ones when dealing with allegations of elder abuse, a crime that’s expected to grow more common as the population ages.

“I think this is really just a cautionary tale about problems that we’re going to have to face in the future,” said Charles Whitman, the attorney for former defendant Donald M. Steele, 44. “It’s possible, in your zeal to do something, to go too far or to include people that you shouldn’t have included.”

The charges came last summer after both Griffiths passed away and the conservator of their estate began spotting discrepancies in their finances.

Steele was charged at the same time as the Griffiths’ in-home caregiver, Melody McKenzie, who is serving a four-year jail sentence after pleading guilty to four counts of mistreating a dependent adult.

In all, there were more than $303,000 in checks made out to McKenzie from the Griffiths’ accounts between spring 2001 and 2002, according to a police affidavit. The agreed amount of restitution in her case, however, is roughly $70,000.

Prosecutors alleged Steele, owner of All Seasons Tree Service, 1706 N. 1500 Road, broke the law by charging the couple $12,000 for landscaping work between June and July 2001. Workers overhauled the property by adding plants and removing “tremendous amounts of vegetation,” Whitman said.

The criminal case against Steele was based in part on estimates Lawrence Police obtained from other landscape companies who said they could have done the work for between $1,160 and $4,605.

But Whitman said he sought landscaping experts who reviewed invoices, examined the yard closely and found nothing was out of line. Shortly before the case was to go to trial, he furnished that information to prosecutors in Dist. Atty. Christine Kenney’s office, who later moved to dismiss the charges, citing insufficient evidence.

Kenney declined to discuss details of the case Wednesday.

“We received additional information … which made us reach the conclusion that we were most likely not going to be able to prove that case beyond a reasonable doubt,” she said.

Steele could not be reached for comment Wednesday.