CHRISTIANSBURG -- A lawsuit filed by Hash Investments LLC against developer Roger Woody has been dropped, according to records filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court.

Larry Shelor and David Hagan, owners of Hash Investments, filed the suit in 2007 asking the court to find that Woody had no easement across property at Gateway Plaza on Roanoke Street, where Shelor and Hagan own 21.5 acres. Woody had claimed that a 50-foot right of way was granted to him in 1999 through an agreement with Daniel Kamin, former owner of the property.

That easement agreement, however, was not recorded at the courthouse. Kendall Clay, the lawyer representing Hash Investments, said when Kamin sold the property to his clients, they bought it not subject to that easement.

Woody's former lawyer, Gerard Marks, represented him in the 1999 easement agreement. Hagan said Marks and Woody came to his office in October 2006 and presented him with "a piece of paper that they said showed the right of way agreed upon eight years earlier had been recorded."

Hagan and Shelor, who also own Shelor Motor Mile, filed the suit and asked for $100,000 in damages for defacement to their property resulting from Woody's dump trucks using the parking lot to access an 8.7-acre tract behind the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. Woody, who successfully got the parcel rezoned for business in 1998, said then that he hoped to use it for a retail operation.

Since the Hash Investment suit was filed, Marks has had his law license suspended and has been indicted on 21 felony charges related to forging legal documents for his clients. Land agreements for Woody are among those Marks is accused of falsifying, according to the indictments. Marks' trial is expected to be set June 18.

Hagan said after Virginia State Police investigators interviewed him as part of their investigation of Marks, he and Shelor decided to withdraw their suit on May 22.

"Basically what we were suing for is the right of way. Now it's been established that those documents are fraudulent and false, we have nothing to sue for," Hagan said Thursday.

"We were surprised after Mr. Woody told us a judge had awarded him a right of way," he added. "He does not have the right of way that he thought he had."

In 1999, Woody did have an easement access to his land that ran in front of the present-day Food Lion store at Gateway Plaza. The document Marks and Woody presented to Hagan, however, noted that the easement would be "released and extinguished" and replaced with an easement closer to the center of the shopping center parking lot.

Kelly Serenko, administrative assistant for Kamin, whose business is now in Pittsburgh, said the signatures on the document did not belong to him.

"It has been verified that it was not his [Kamin's] signature," Serenko said Friday.

Hagan said he and Shelor are not disputing Woody's original easement. He said they do feel that they were exploited, however.

"We've been terribly wronged here," he said. "Someone tried to steal this right of way from us."

Jim Wessel, Woody's spokesman, said the developer did not wish to make any comment.