IOWA CITY, Iowa — A white man who deliberately sped his car through a crowd of racial injustice protesters in Iowa City, striking several, will avoid prison and have the incident erased from his record if he stays out of trouble for three years.

A judge last month granted a deferred judgment for Michael Ray Stepanek, 45, who told police he drove his Toyota Camry through the crowd in August because the protesters needed “an attitude adjustment.”

The sentence means a felony charge of willful injury resulting in bodily injury against Stepanek will be dismissed and expunged, as long as he does not commit a crime during a three-year term of probation. Judge Paul Miller also suspended a $1,025 civil fine.

Offenders who commit “forcible felonies” are not eligible for deferred judgments, but the charge to which Stepanek pleaded is not considered one under Iowa law. He was also eligible for the break because he did not have a criminal history.

Stepanek’s attorney John Bruzek said his client was influenced by social media and political rhetoric characterizing the protesters as dangerous criminals. Stepanek initially believed that he was legally justified but has come to see he was wrong and apologized, Bruzek said.

“Michael understands how his conduct could have resulted in a much more serious and harmful situation,” he said.

The Johnson County Attorney’s Office, which agreed to Stepanek’s plea deal, could face accusations of double standards as it continues to pursue charges against some Black Lives Matter protesters involved in the demonstrations last summer.

Prosecutors are pursuing 15 counts, including nine felonies, against a protest leader charged with shining a laser beam light in police officers’ eyes in August.

A 20-year-old Black protester who carried an assault rifle through an Iowa City crowd in June has been indicted on a federal charge of illegally possessing a gun while using marijuana. The man, who faces up to 10 years in prison, had already been prosecuted by Johnson County on related charges after the gun was found during a traffic stop following the protest.

Separately in Des Moines, prosecutors are pursuing felony leak charges against two protesters accused of stealing an intelligence bulletin from an officer and giving it to a television reporter.

DENVER — Suburban Denver police officers won’t be charged after detaining four Black girls by gunpoint this summer and handcuffing two of them after wrongly suspecting that they were riding in a stolen car, prosecutors said Friday.

It came the same day the Colorado attorney general opened a grand jury investigation into the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who was stopped as he walked down the street, placed in a neck hold and injected with a sedative in 2019.

A review by the district attorney’s office found no evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the officers acted unlawfully during the Aug. 2 traffic stop.

However, Chief Deputy District Attorney Clinton McKinzie called it “disturbing.”

“It is our hope, however, that APD will immediately undertake a review of their policies to try and ensure that nothing of this sort ever happens again,“ McKinzie said. “What happened to the innocent occupants is unacceptable and preventable.”

The Associated Press