GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A white woman who used racial slurs as she attacked a Black car salesman at a western Michigan dealership has avoided jail, despite a tearful appeal from the victim for her to be put behind bars.

Judge Paul Sullivan on Tuesday sentenced Shelly Hueckel of Nashville, Mich., to two years of probation. Hueckel was convicted in December of misdemeanor assault but cleared of ethnic intimidation, a felony.

Before the Kent County judge handed down Hueckel’s punishment, Terrence Smith asked that the maximum sentence be imposed. The misdemeanor conviction is punishable by up to 93 days in jail.

“I was . . . assaulted for no reason and called a [N-word] over and over again,’’ Smith recalled. Hueckel struck Smith repeatedly, knocking off his glasses while shouting the slurs. She apologized in court.

During her trial, an attorney for Hueckel, 47, said she was upset by an appraisal for her car — not Smith’s race — at the dealership in Lowell last April.

The judge agreed.

associated press