BROOKHAVEN — A judge has thrown out the aggravated assault convictions of two Columbus women.

Tammy Vance and Leigh Stubbs were convicted in 2001 in Lincoln County for morphine possession and aggravated assault.

The Daily Leader reports that Circuit Judge Michael Taylor threw out the convictions this past week and the two were released from jail Thursday.

The decision came after a February hearing in which lawyers with the Mississippi Innocence Project argued prosecutors in the original trial failed to turn over evidence damaging to the state's case.

Vance and Stubbs were each sentenced to 44 years in prison.

The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld their convictions in 2003.

Vance and Stubbs were charged with aggravated assault, unlawful possession of morphine, conspiracy to possess morphine and grand larceny in connection with the sexual assault of a 21-year-old Vicksburg woman at a Brookhaven motel in March 2000.

The three wound up in Brookhaven after earlier leaving a Columbus chemical rehabilitation treatment center together.

Innocence Project attorneys said there were questions about a witness' testimony about a videotape that allegedly showed two women moving a body and whether prosecutors withheld an FBI analysis of the same tape was far less conclusive.

Taylor said in his decision that the failure to turn over the FBI report merited a new trial.

"The video evidence was material and the inability of the defense to challenge or counter it merits a new trial," Taylor wrote in the decision.

On Aug. 6, Stubbs and Vance must reappear for a hearing in Lincoln County. Prosecutors may then move forward with motions for a second trial or choose to drop the case.