photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Thomas Gallagher, left, appears Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, in Douglas County District Court with his attorney, Hatem Chahine.

The case against a former Lawrence school district janitor was abruptly dismissed Tuesday in Douglas County District Court after his attorney informed the judge that the pornography he was alleged to have possessed was of an adult woman, not of a child.

The revelation came about after the defendant, Thomas Allen Gallagher, 62, had spent about three months in the county jail on the felony charge of sexually exploiting a child.

Gallagher’s attorney, Hatem Chahine, told Judge Stacey Donovan that the alleged victim had told law enforcement that she was over 18, rendering the incident, in Chahine’s words, a case of legal “adult pornography.”

Gallagher was scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Tuesday, at which the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office would have been required to prove there was probable cause to order him to stand trial. The DA’s office, represented by Assistant DA Samantha Foster, tried to get Donovan to continue the case due to an unavailable witness, presumably the alleged victim, but Chahine opposed the continuance, and Donovan declined to grant it.

Once the continuance was denied, Foster agreed to a dismissal of the child exploitation charge without prejudice, meaning that it could be brought again.

Donovan modified Gallagher’s bond from $25,000 cash or surety to $5,000 own-recognizance, meaning he does not have to pay anything to be released. Gallagher had been in jail since June 16.

The bond is for a misdemeanor case of domestic battery that remains active. In that case, as the Journal-World reported, the arrest affidavit alleges that Gallagher, while drunk and high, grabbed a woman’s arm and pushed her against a wall, leaving a bruise. The woman also told police that Gallagher had repeatedly abused her for years, including choking her, hitting her in the head with a hammer and pushing her down stairs. The woman told police that she never reported the violence because she thought she was “doing the right thing” by not reporting it. Allegations in arrest affidavits have not been proved in court.

Gallagher is scheduled to appear in court for the misdemeanor on Sept. 17.

Gallagher worked for the Lawrence school district from 2020 until May, about a month before his arrest. According to the district, he was a districtwide custodian and then a preventative maintenance technician. The district has said it wasn’t aware of any connection between Gallagher’s work for the district and the crimes he was accused of.