A former Penn State wrestler is free of charges after prosecutors decided Monday not to retry his overturned sexual assault conviction.

Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira dropped the retrial of Jean Celestin, who was originally found guilty in a 2001 trial of sexually assaulting a 19-year-old Penn State student in 1999, because witnesses essential to the prosecution were unable to testify.

The student said Celestin and his roommate, Nathaniel Parker, assaulted her in August 1999. Parker was acquitted of all charges related to the case.

The prosecutor of the case, Centre County Assistant District Attorney Lance Marshall, said the prosecution could not find enough witnesses to testify after Judge David Grine would not allow the reuse of testimony from the original trial.

In October, the Pennsylvania Superior Court overturned Celestin's original conviction, and he was granted a retrial after his lawyer, Eric Linhardt, filed an appeal claiming Celestin's previous lawyer was ineffective because he failed to object to an illegally recorded telephone conversation and the admission of "hearsay statements."

Calls to Linhardt were not returned as of press time yesterday.

Marshall said key witnesses for the retrial, which was set to start tomorrow, cannot testify in Centre County, making it hard for the prosecution to continue.

"The alleged incident occurred six and a half years ago," he said. "[The witnesses] are in different parts of the country and world."

Marshall said he filed for a motion to ask Grine to use previous testimony after three main witnesses were unable to make it to the retrial.

According to court documents, Marshall said one witness is in the U.S. Air Force and unable to leave his station in Japan. Another witness, who lives in California, was mailed a subpoena that was not returned. Lastly, a letter was sent to the Philadelphia address of a third witness but was later returned unclaimed.

"These witnesses were a bulk of the original trial, and they were essential to the retrial," Marshall said.

In the 2001 trial, Tamerlane Kangas, the witness who could not leave Japan to come to the retrial, testified that he saw the incident. Kangas testified that Parker motioned for Kangas and Celestin to join him, and that it appeared the woman was not moving. Kangas also said he tried to stop Celestin from entering the room.

Celestin was sentenced to two to four years in prison and was ordered to register as a sex offender.

After the appeal was granted, he was released from Centre County Prison in lieu of $25,000 unsecured bail.

Celestin's retrial was originally scheduled for Jan. 9 and 10, but a continuance was granted to allow Celestin and Linhardt more time to prepare for the retrial.

At the end of last year, Linhardt filed to suppress evidence of an illegally obtained wiretap that was used in the original trial.

According to court documents, the victim testified at Celestin's preliminary hearing in 1999 that she had no recollection of who was involved in sexual activity with her the night of the incident, other than Parker.

According to court documents, the preliminary hearing transcript revealed that police used a phone conversation between the victim and Parker, which was illegally recorded by the victim, to apply for and obtain a wiretap warrant. The wiretap served as the basis for much of the investigation.

The information from the phone conversation allowed police to find out information they otherwise would not have known, including the fact that another man -- Celestin -- was involved, according to the motion to suppress evidence. Court documents, however, were not available to determine if Linhardt's motion was granted.

"The wiretap has nothing to do with our decision to not have a retrial," Marshall said. "It was well thought out and was made after our inability to get vital witnesses to testify."