COEUR d'ALENE - Christina J. Greenfield said she was vilified and her reputation tarnished.

But the 54-year-old Post Falls woman hopes some of that damage can be undone now that she has been acquitted on a criminal charge and the case closed.

Greenfield was accused of cutting several feet off the top of a row of arborvitaes running along her and a neighbor's property line that acted as a fence. The cutting was done while the neighbor was away on vacation.

Greenfield had been charged with felony malicious injury to property, and a trial had been scheduled for this month.

Greenfield said Friday that the cut to the arborvitaes was grossly exaggerated by the neighbor, and subsequently by police.

Greenfield and the neighbor, on the 200 block of South Parkwood Place, had numerous disputes in recent years.

Prosecutors did not get an official survey of the properties identifying the location of the arborvitaes, and were not ready for trial.

Prosecutors sought to dismiss the charge against Greenfield until a survey could be done, then go to trial at a later date. But the court decided on an acquittal.

Greenfield said the hedges are on the property line, and that she just gave them a trim, and didn't cut off several feet as she was accused of doing.

She said she is seeking damages against Kootenai County and the city of Post Falls through a civil suit.

"I should have never been accused in the first place," she said. "It's been 18 months of hell to get to this point."

She lives in a subdivision with about 10 homes, and the dispute was with a neighbor who runs a bed and breakfast.

She thinks the dispute over the hedges was sparked by her complaints to the city of Post Falls about the neighbor hosting weddings at the bed and breakfast.