A transgender woman who got into a scuffle with a bouncer last year had her criminal charge dropped recently, court records show.

Lynette Matusik previously told The Charlotte Observer and other news outlets that she was the victim of a hate crime at NoDa pub Billy Jack’s Shack in November.

She provided some footage of the incident, which showed her being pulled from the bar and onto the floor by a Gridiron Protection Services employee. In the video, she asked him to stop choking her. Pictures she provided showed her with a black eye and bruising.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police charged her, not the bouncer, and said that she bit his thigh.

That simple affray charge was dismissed on April 22, according to court records.

“The State did not have the witnesses to proceed and the case was dismissed,” Mike Stolp, a spokesperson for District Attorney Spencer Merriweather, confirmed in a message Friday.

Company’s owner, guard never charged

The state’s Private Protective Services Board found that the bouncer and his employer were working without credentials — meaning they never went through a state-sanctioned criminal background check or training.

That’s an oft ignored crime in North Carolina.

The Private Protective Services Board has limited authority. It used that authority to issue and uphold a cease-and-desist order telling Gridiron to stop the unlicensed work, Director Paul Sherwin said Friday.

But any criminal charges for unlicensed security work must be filed by law enforcement. With the board’s database of registered guards and companies, it’s a straightforward crime to prove or disprove, and a Class 1 misdemeanor.

The bouncer and the company’s owner haven’t been charged, though, a search of Mecklenburg County court records shows.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s in-house ABC unit investigates unlicensed security, but bouncers “technically don’t fall into that category,” CMPD spokesperson Mike Allinger said. The case went to a local division that declined to press charges, he said.

ALE, a state law-enforcement agency that often arrests people who do security work illegally, did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

Unlicensed guards often work at gambling arcades and strip clubs. Sometimes they get caught at county fairs, apartment complexes or places like Billy Jack’s Shack.

The pub faced no penalties, Sherwin said.

“Though maybe the bar should have known better than to hire unlicensed security,” he added.

Billy Jack’s Shack didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Sherwin said that no law enforcement agency reached out to the board about the NoDa incident, which was investigated following the Observer’s reporting.

“It’s mostly ALE (filing those charges),” Sherwin said. “Greensboro PD does it a lot, Raleigh on occasion. We don’t get much out of Charlotte.”

Do you have information about unlicensed security guards working in North Carolina? We want to hear from you. Email reporter Ryan Oehrli at roehrli@charlotteobserver.com.