Florida prosecutors on Thursday dropped a felony charge against rapper Rick Ross nearly a month after he was arrested in Miami Beach when a woman he was living with told police he hit her, court records said.

The Miami-Dade state attorney’s office filed paperwork on Thursday to drop a felony charge of battery by strangulation because of “insufficient evidence”. Ross, whose legal name is William Roberts II, still faces a misdemeanor charge of battery domestic violence.

Ross, 50, has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and his attorney said on Friday that his client would continue to defend himself against the allegations.

Ross surrendered at the Miami Beach police station on 1 October, two days after the woman filed a report with police, officials said. He was freed on bail several hours later.

According to an arrest report, a woman told Miami Beach detectives that she had been living with Ross when he accused her of cheating on him and struck her multiple times on 28 August.…