Sam Hanson-Fleming -- the Portland man who has battled for months with a Corvallis college student for the return of his lost dog -- won a major victory Friday when Multnomah County prosecutors declined to pursue criminal charges that he mistreated the dog.

Prosecutors started investigating Hanson-Fleming more than seven weeks ago after the woman who found his dog hired an attorney and accused Hanson-Fleming of hitting, kicking, biting and urinating on the dog.

Hanson-Fleming was adamant that the accusations were false and said they amounted to a last-ditch attempt by the woman, Jordan Biggs, to win custody of the nearly 3-year-old husky-shepherd mix.

The Multnomah County District Attorney's Office found that while Hanson-Fleming didn't appear to treat the dog appropriately at times, prosecutors lacked evidence to charge him with abuse or neglect.

The decision means Hanson-Fleming, a 30-year-old father of two boys, is moving closer to a reunion with the dog he adopted as a puppy in December 2009 and named Chase.

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"We're excited that this is a step in the right direction," said James McCurdy, a Portland attorney who is representing Hanson-Fleming free of charge. "Hopefully, we'll be able to get Sam's dog back on the 4th and we'll get this whole matter behind everybody."

On Oct. 4, a Benton County judge will consider a pre-trial motion to release the dog to Hanson-Fleming. The dog has been held at the Oregon Humane Society in Northeast Portland for the past 56 days.

Biggs has been charged with first-degree theft, and her trial is scheduled Oct. 24.

Hanson-Fleming had the dog for about 16 months when, on March 27, 2011, Chase hopped the backyard fence. Biggs, a 20-year-old Oregon State University student who was visiting Portland, found the dog and returned to Corvallis with him the same day. She said she looked for the owner for two months, then considered the dog her own. She named him Bear.

After many months of fruitless searching, Hanson-Fleming happened to be waiting in a line of cars at a Dutch Bros. Coffee in Southeast Portland in May 2012 when he noticed the dog in an SUV behind him. Biggs was driving.

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Within days, she declined to give the dog to Hanson-Fleming, telling him that she'd grown to love the dog. She also has said she needed the dog because she trained him to be her asthma service animal.

On July 10, Multnomah County's Animal Services director ruled that Hanson-Fleming was the dog's lawful owner. Ten days later, Biggs was arrested, briefly booked into jail and charged with first-degree theft.

Benton County Circuit Judge Locke Williams ordered the dog be held at an animal shelter after Biggs' attorney argued the dog needed to be held as evidence. The dog has remained at the Oregon Humane Society in protective custody ever since.

Dogs in protective custody generally are kept in 4-by-12-foot kennels, with 30 minutes of daily play in a large fenced area and two 15-minute walks. Volunteers aren't allowed to play with them.

"While there is no question that OHS will attend to Chase's basic needs during the time when he is within restricted evidentiary custody there, Chase deserves a better environment with considerate and caring human interaction," Hanson-Fleming's attorney said in a motion to the judge.

Benton County Deputy Prosecutor David Amesbury said Friday he supports Hanson-Fleming's request to have the dog released, saying the dog needn't be held "as evidence." Amesbury wrote in court papers that Biggs' "insistence on keeping 'Chase' in such restricted conditions seems designed only to frustrate (Hanson-Fleming's) efforts to be reunited with his dog."

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