The two Wetumpka women arrested last year for feeding feral cats in the area are no longer being prosecuted after an Elmore County judge signed off on city prosecutors’ intentions to back off the cases.

Mary Alston, 61, and Beverly Roberts, 85, were arrested by Wetumpka police officers last summer when they found the women feeding cats near the municipal courthouse. City officials had already informed Roberts that she could be arrested if she fed cats at the courthouse and told Alston that morning to stop setting out traps.

Their arrests caused a national stir among animal rights advocates and shone a spotlight on trap-neuter-return, a strategy embraced by many cities to reduce feral cat populations by feeding and fixing untamed felines

The Wetumpka women were both charged with third-degree criminal trespassing.

A Wetumpka municipal judge found the two women guilty in December after a daylong trial and sentenced both to two years unsupervised probation. Attorneys for the women appealed the case to circuit court.

On Wednesday, Elmore County Circuit Court Judge J. Amanda Baxley approved prosecutors’ motions to nolle prosse, or no longer pursue, the cases against Alston and Roberts, court records showed.

Wetumpka prosecutors did not give a reason for halting the cases and Baxley did not say why she was granting the motions.

Following the women’s arrests, Elmore County officials said the cats had become a costly nuisance and that Roberts and Alston made the problem worse. However, Alston and Roberts said their efforts could have helped control the surplus cat population.

Video of the arrests of the two women drew condemnation to the small town of Wetumpka, a riverside community north of Montgomery best known for its legal hotel-casino. In the face of the outrage, city officials stood firm, bringing in an outside prosecutor and scheduling an all-day hearing on the misdemeanor charges.