A Butler man’s legal troubles have become a bit less severe.

Moments before 23-year-old Anthony Lee Harris’ preliminary hearing Monday, a Butler County prosecutor withdrew the most serious charge of arson against the defendant stemming from a June incident at his girlfriend’s duplex in Butler.

District Judge Pete Shaffer subsequently dismissed an additional charge of simple assault but ordered Harris held for court on two lesser counts of disorderly conduct.

Butler police last month arrested the defendant after his girlfriend returned to her home in the 200 block of East Brady Street June 14 and found a shoe on fire in the front doorway.

No one was injured and Shannon Pope used flour to quickly snuff out the fire at her home, Butler police said.

Called by the prosecution at Monday’s hearing, Pope testified as a friendly witness for the defendant.

Pope said she and Harris have been together for three or four years and have two children, 18 months and one month.

She said that he had showed up at her home about 8 p.m. to drop off their oldest child. She was nine months pregnant with the couple’s youngest child at the time.

But when Pope didn’t immediately answer his knock at the door, Harris “smashed out” a front window “because his key didn’t work,” she testified.

She eventually went out the door to check on Harris’ whereabouts. She returned 10 minutes later and noticed a shoe on fire just inside the doorway.

Pope told police that she had previously left the shoe on the porch prior to Harris getting there, according to court documents.

Police initially charged the defendant with setting the fire. But at the hearing she told prosecutor Richard Bosco, a Butler County assistant district attorney, that she “never witnessed the whole shoe incident.”

On cross-examination, she repeated that she did not see who started the fire,

She further defended Harris during continued questioning by her attorney, Butler County public defendant Charles Nedz.

“(Harris) never put his hands on me,” she said. Nor, she added, did he threaten her.

Before the hearing, Bosco acknowledged the facts of the case led him to withdraw the arson charge, a felony.

Shaffer, following testimony, threw out a charge of simple assault, a second-degree misdemeanor. He ordered Harris held for trial on two counts of disorderly conduct, both third-degree misdemeanors.

Harris remains in the Butler County Prison on a probation detainer.