Fremont piano teacher Boping Chen, 59, whose March 2006 conviction on child molestation charges involving an 8-year-old Menlo Park girl had been overturned on appeal, got a reprieve of sorts on Monday, Nov. 2, when a San Mateo County judge dismissed a retrial of his case.

Criminal Presiding Judge Susan Etezadi dismissed the case because the "alleged" victim's family decided not to testify in a new trial, Mr. Chen's defense attorney Doron Weinberg said in an interview.

The dismissal does not establish Mr. Chen's innocence, but does clear his record, Mr. Weinberg said. Mr. Chen ended a three-year stay in San Quentin state prison in early June after Superior Court Judge Stephen Hall had issued a writ of habeas corpus requiring the Department of Corrections to release him.

Judge Hall had thrown out Mr. Chen's conviction after concluding that his representation in the 2006 trial was "not competent" in that his attorney (not Mr. Weinberg) should have engaged an expert to testify as to whether Mr. Chen fit the profile of a pedophile.

Mr. Chen's new defense team did test him. "The evaluation came back saying that this man is not any kind of sexual deviant," Mr. Weinberg said. "He fits no part of the profile."

The original defense attorney claimed that an expert witness had said that such tests would be inadvisable, given Mr. Chen's limited English skills and reportedly inaccurate results for native Chinese speakers, prosecutors said in a report. Mr. Chen emigrated from Shanghai in 2000.

Several other expert witnesses disputed that claim, saying that interpreters were effective in such cases, and Judge Hall agreed with them.

A new jury trial had been set for Nov. 2, but with a dismissal in the offing, a jury had not been assembled, Mr. Weinberg said.