Man Accused Of Threats To Naacp President

A Washington man is scheduled for a district court appearance Oct. 24 on a charge that he threatened to kill the president of the Idaho Falls chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Danny DePriest, Moses Lake, Wash., is charged with malicious harassment, a felony.

Americus John-Lewis, Idaho Falls, said at a preliminary hearing that he was afraid for his life when a van pulled alongside him July 20 while he was bike-riding with a friend. He said someone yelled a racial epithet. “I was scared. I didn’t know what to do,” he said.

DePriest’s public defender, Gil Gardner, asked Magistrate Linda Cook to dismiss the charge on the ground there was no reasonable cause for John-Lewis to believe he was under a physical threat. No one showed a weapon or took any action, other than words, Gardner said.

While Gardner said the threat and racial slurs weren’t appropriate, he felt DePriest was being prosecuted only because it is a “very political case.”

Bonneville County Prosecutor David Johnson took some heat for slow action on the case. Gardner argued DePriest was “the scapegoat” because of that.