Ex-prosecutor cleared of felony in wrong-way Michigan crash

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – A jury has acquitted a former assistant prosecutor of a felony in a November 2016 crash that led to the firing of a police lieutenant and suspension of two other Grand Rapids officers accused of covering up the man’s intoxication.

The Kent County Circuit Court jury found 44-year-old Josh Kuiper not guilty Tuesday of reckless driving causing serious impairment of a bodily function. It found him guilty of misdemeanour reckless driving, a charge the defence already had stipulated to.

Kuiper injured Dan Empson when he hit Empson’s parked car while driving the wrong way down a one-way street.

Telephone recordings released last year revealed Officer Adam Ickes told then-Lt. Matthew Janiskee that Kuiper appeared intoxicated. But Kuiper wasn’t asked to take a Breathalyzer test and wasn’t charged with drunken driving. Ickes was later suspended, while Janiskee was fired.