Five Stanford University students who faced prison sentences and thousands of dollars in restitution in connection to a campus protest against Israel’s war on Gaza had all charges dropped on Monday.

The students also had their restitution severely reduced, ending a two-year legal saga that also saw the lead prosecutor in the case removed by the court.

Part of a group of 12, the students had been charged with felony conspiracy to trespass and felony vandalism in connection to an hour-long, June 2024 occupation during which the group barricaded themselves inside the university president’s office to demand Stanford consider a student resolution to divest from Israel, among other requests.

Some accepted plea deals or other diversion offers but five of the students went to trial earlier this year. The month-long trial ended with a hung jury but Jeff Rosen, the Santa Clara county district attorney, immediately announced his intention to retry the case before a judge ordered his recusal in May over a conflict of interest that, the judge said during court proceedings, would “render it unlikely that the defendants will receive fair treatment”.

The case has since been taken over by the California attorney general’s office, which reached a resolution with the students. That resolution meant dropping all charges in exchange for 100 hours of community service at a nonprofit of their choosing and a total restitution of about $50,000, far less than the $1m prosecutors initially threatened them with and the $ 329,000 they each risked being found liable for at trial. The charges were the most severe handed out against students in connection to pro-Palestine protests on campus.