A Shawnee County judge has dismissed a breach of contract lawsuit against a Kansas couple filed by a Colorado man who held the couple hostage.

Jesse Dimmick is serving an 11-year sentence after bursting into Jared and Lindsay Rowley’s Topeka-area home in September 2009. He was wanted for questioning in a Colorado man’s beating death and a chase had begun in in Geary County. The couple escaped after Dimmick fell asleep.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports Dimmick filed a breach of contract suit in Shawnee County court in response to a lawsuit the Rowleys filed in September. Dimmick contends that he and the couple had a binding, oral contract that they would hide him for an unspecified amount of money.

The judge dismissed Dimmick’s lawsuit Jan. 9.