Prosecutors in Palm Beach County, Florida announced Thursday that a potential criminal battery case against Donald Trump's campaign manager is dead in the water, calling into question the version of events presented by a reporter who filed the criminal complaint.

One witness told police his eyes were fixed on Michelle Fields, the journalist who claimed Corey Lewandowski battered her – and her actions 'looked like a fraudulent slip-and-fall.'

Police in Jupiter, Florida released video of their interview with Michael Spellman on Thursday, along with a more formal statement that he wrote immediately afterward.

Spellman, the president of a glass technology company based in Jupiter, says on camera that Fields' reaction to Lewandowski separating her from Trump after a March 8 press conference was 'disproportionate' and 'bizarre.'

'At first I thought she was drunk,' he recalled.

State Attorney Dave Aronberg and his chief assistant Adrienne Ellis considered Spellman's statement along with those of other witnesses, ultimately finding that there was conflicting evidence that would kill their chances of convicting Lewandowski.

THE MOMENT: Prosecutors in Palm beach County, Florida reviewed video in the Corey Lewandowski case that showed reporter Michelle Fields making contact with Donald Trump – and the billionaire recoiling – before his campaign manager intervened to separate them

NO LONGER TWISTING IN THE WIND: Lewandowski was accused of committing simple battery against a reporter and waited for weeks to learn whether he would be tried in a Florida courtroom

'DISAPPOINTED': Michelle Fields won't see Lewandowski prosecuted despite her claims that he battered her

'I've made the decision that this office will not be filing charges against Corey Lewandowski for battery,' Aronberg said as he led off a news conference.

'We agree that probable cause exists,' he said. 'But as prosecutors, our standard is higher than probable cause and we must prove each case beyond reasonable doubt.'

FIELDS V. THE PROSECUTORS: WHAT THEY SAID THURSDAY Prosecutors said during Thursday's press conference that Michelle Fields made physical contact with Donald Trump before Corey Lewandowski touched her, but denied it during their conversations with her. Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg described the incident, saying Fields 'makes her way beyond the press area and gets right next to Mr. Trump and actually makes slight contact with Mr. Trump.' Aronberg's chief assistant prosecutor, Adrienne Ellis, chose more forceful words while narrating video footage: 'You can see when she gets next to him that she touches him and you can see Mr. Trump recoil his arm like that, and that is the point at which Mr. Lewandowski reaches in.' Ellis also recalled a conversation with Trump in which 'he said that she touched him, and all that's captured on the video surveillance. ... it was quite evident.' But Ellis said Fields told her that she never made physical contact with Trump. 'My conversation with her was basically that she, you know, did not touch Mr Trump,' Ellis said. A reporter countered: 'She said that to you?' 'Yes,' Ellis replied, 'that she did not touch Mr. Trump. And that's not what we see captured on video.' Advertisement

Aronberg added: 'While evidence in this case is legally sufficient it is not strong enough to meet the legal burden of a reasonable likelihood of a conviction.'

Police in Jupiter, Florida had issued a probable cause charge and referred the case to his office.

Among other inconsistencies, investigators found that Fields began the altercation by leaving the press area, entering the 'protective bubble' of Secret Service and staff security surrounding Trump, touching him in the process.

Ellis said Fields told her office that she had never touched Trump, but added: 'That's not what we see captured on the video.'

The video evidence shows the Republican front-runner pulling away from her after she makes contact.

The Spellman video was first surfaced by a news outlet called Lead Stories. The technology executive's police interview came more than three weeks after the March 8 incident.

But he told an officer that a photo in the New York post was shot from the same point of view he had in the ballroom at Trump International Golf Club in Jupiter.

'I had a straight shot at what was going on,' he said.

'From my perspective, I was just looking at her rush him ... and then suddenly she makes a dramatic spin and turn that looked like a fraudulent slip-and-fall. I mean, it was just blatant.'

'It looked so, so – disproportionate, is the right word,' Spellman says on the video.

'It was bizarre. And I studied her after, because at first I thought she was drunk.'

Also weighing against Spellman's account is that he explains why he was watching Fields so closely.

'I was looking right at her ... I also noticed she had jeans on. You don't get into that club with jeans on,' he said. 'So, uh, she looked pretty good in them, by the way.

EXECUTIVE ON THE SPOT: Michael Spellman is president of IGE Glass Technologies, a Jupiter, Florida company that makes machinery used in glass handling and fabricaiton

SPELLMAN'S STORY: The witness told police that Fields' reaction to Lewandowski touching her was 'fake' and 'fraudulent.'

WITNESS: Michael Spellman came to police with his version of event, saying he thought Fields may have been intoxicated and that he believed she was executing 'a fraudulent slip-and-fall'

NO CHARGES: State Attorney Dave Aronberg (right) and his chief assistant prosecutor Adrienne Ellis explained Thursday that the case will not be pursued in criminal court

Recalling the moment he said Fields 'shoved her phone ... right at' Trump, Spellman said he was 'surprised that Secret Service let 'em do that – let her do that.'

'But then seconds later it just – she spun, and it was really animated and acting.

His written statement, obtained by NBC News, said he saw Fields 'fall back in what appeared to be a disproportionate reaction and a fake action. I did not see from my view any touching. I truly believe her reaction was fraudulent.'

MORE PUBLICITY: The case will likely shine a spotlight on Fields as she prepares to promote her first book, due out in June

Lewandowski claimed, wrongly, after the incident that he had never touched Fields, calling her 'delusional.' She has threatened to file a civil lawsuit against him for defamation.

Lewandowski's attorney, Bradford Cohen, warned Thursday against that course of action as he threw a rhetorical brushback pitch at Fields.

'I don't find it to be that good of an idea to file a defamation claim on this kind of case,' he said on CNN, 'because it opens up a very large door to your past. It opens up a large door to other things that could be going on.'

It could also open up Trump in particular to a round of cringe-worthy legal discovery in the middle of a presidential campaign.

Cohen said on the Fox News Channel's 'On the Record with Greta van Susteren' that Trump and Lewandowski could file counter-claims against both Fields and her boyfriend Jamie Weinstein.

Weinstein, an editor at The Daily Caller, has been Fields' most vocal online defender.

Fields, Cohen said on Fox news, 'called Corey a thug and called Mr. Trump a thug.'

'The first shot that was heard was from her boyfriend saying Corey is a thug and Mr. Trump is a thug ... it just kinda snowballed form there,' he added.

The Trump campaign said Thursday in a statement that Lewandowski 'is gratified by the decision to drop the misdemeanor charge and appreciates the thoughtful consideration and professionalism by the Palm Beach State Attorney and his staff who carefully reviewed this matter, as well as Mr. Trump’s loyalty and the support of his colleagues and family during this time. The matter is now concluded.'

During a video walk-through of the incident, Ellis said the decision not to prosecute Lewandowski was in large part colored by the fact that Fields had first made physical contact with Trump as he walked out of a ballroom at his Jupiter country club.

That's when Lewandowski reached in and pulled her away, the video shows.

'We're not charging him because he was reacting to what he perceived as a potential threat to someone that he is in charge of protecting, so to speak,' she explained.

'He just kinda reacted and did what he needed to do.'

HIS SUPER POWER IS POLITENESS? Lewandowski told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday night that he remembered saying 'Excuse me' and 'Thank you' as he separated Fields from Trump

Fields, the video shows, left the area where reporters were told to remain and made her way into the protective 'bubble' around Trump that consisted of Secret Service agents and campaign staff.

Ellis described 'her trying to grab to Mr. Trump in some respect ... from an area that she was not supposed to be in.'

Lewandowski said Thursday night on the Fox News 'Hannity' program that the video surveillance footage from the ceiling of Trump's country club ballroom showed that 'what she [Fields] was saying was not factually accurate.'

He also claimed to have said 'Excuse me' and 'Thank you' when he moved to separate her from Trump.

'That's what polite people do – say "Excuse me" and "Thank you".' he said. 'And I didn't remember anything more than that.'

'And I didn't even know anything about it until I looked at her Twitter feed hours later when I was being accused of being a thug.'

Lewandowski said he would have been willing to resolve the issue privately, but 'to this day I've never spoken to Michelle Fields.'

FORENSIC ANALYSIS: Prosecutor Adrienne Ellis stepped reporters through frame after frame of the surveillance video

Prosecutors were also influenced by an affidavit from Barton Brown a federal agent who once led then-Attorney General Eric Holder’s protective detail.

Lewandowski’s actions, Brown concluded, were appropriate in the situation he found himself in.

'Secret Service agents will create something referred to as a "protective bubble",' he wrote. 'This "protective bubble" is created to prevent unauthorized individuals from getting too close to the person, regardless of whether or not they are members of the press.'

'More importantly, under these circumstances, it is not uncommon that a candidate's inner circle staff members, known to the agents, are given apparent authority to assist in clearing a safe pathway, sharing some responsibility for the safety and well-being of the candidate when agents are otherwise occupied and the "protective bubble" is compromised.'

Fields, 28, initially accused Lewandowski of yanking her physically away from Trump with enough force to nearly topple her to the ground.

According to the police report in the case, Fields told officers she was pulled so hard that 'she fell back but caught herself from falling.'

She tweeted a photo of finger-shaped bruises on her arm to buttress her claim that Lewandowski grabbed her with significant force.

NOT YET BEHIND HIM: Lewandowski faces a potential civil lawsuit for defamation after he publicly denied ever touching Fields. Investigators said Thursday that Fields denied ever touching Trump, despite video evidence showing otherwise

NO APOLOGY: Ellis said Lewandowski's lawyers had drafted an apology statement and showed it to her office, but they apparently never sent it

But Ellis said that photo was taken days later, and that a picture shot with Fields' iPhone on the night of the incident indicated no bruises at all.

'The initial photos that we received were a couple days old,' Ellis said, calling it a case of 'delayed reporting.'

'She had taken a photograph on her iPhone that same evening, and there was really nothing there.'

'It wasn't anything that was anything remotely close' to what the later picture showed,' Ellis said, confirming that 'her phone did not show any bruising.'

She also allowed that in some cases bruises can appear days later. But it's unclear why Fields may have taken a picture of her unbruised arm on March 8.

The case has divided the Republican punditocracy, with many scoffing at elevating press-scrum pushing and shoving to a crime, but others insisting Fields is owed an apology.

Ellis said Thursday that Lewandowski's attorneys drafted one and showed it to her office earlier in the week, but it was apparently never sent.

Aronberg said that 'in a case like this we do encourage an apology. We think it's a good idea.'

'I think that had an apology been given at the beginning of all this, we could have avoided the whole criminal justice process.'

Michelle Fields tweeted a photo of her bruised arm after Donald Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski allegedly grabbed her

Fields sent out this tweet alongside a photo of her bruised arm challenging both Corey Lewandowski and Donald Trump, but now prosecutors say the picture was shot days after the incident, and an image from the night in question showed no bruising

The Trump campaign has stood by its embattled campaign manager, with the candidate himself insisting that he wasn't about to cut Lewandowski loose and throw him to the wolves over what amounted to a minor scuffle.

Aronberg summed up a case report that he made available to reporters, saying that Lewandowski could have presented in court a 'reasonable hypothesis of innocence based on the real-time facts and circumstances recorded on the video.'

Trump learned the news of the non-prosecution in his office during a Q&A session with reporters from the Jewish press.

According to The Forward, Trump 'repeated his claim that Lewandowski had not touched Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields.'

'I thought it was disgraceful,' Trump said, according to The Forward.

Learning that the charges had been dropped, Trump said, 'Oh, good. Now tell my friends from, in some cases, Israel – how loyal was Mr. Trump to you?'

'More than I could possibly fathom,' Lewandowski replied. 'I am so grateful.'

The Jewish newspaper added that Trump said, 'I’m proud of you, Corey,' before telling the crowd in his office that his top aide 'wasn’t quite as effective for the past couple of months.'