Barkeep avoids charge over driving into COVID-19 enforcer

NEW YORK (AP) — A bar owner who struck a New York City sheriff’s deputy with a car last month will only face criminal charges alleging he served patrons indoors in defiance of state coronavirus restrictions.

Mac’s Public House co-owner Daniel Presti has been indicted on misdemeanor charges of selling alcohol without a license and operating an unlicensed bottle club, Staten Island prosecutors said Friday. A grand jury that heard evidence in the case, including Presti's testimony, did not charge him in connection with a Dec. 6 incident in which authorities say he got into his car to flee arrest, struck a sheriff's deputy and drove about 100 yards (90 meters) as the deputy clung to the hood.

Both of the deputy's legs were broken.

Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon said in a statement that he intended to pursue the alcohol-related charges against Presti “and will seek to hold this defendant accountable under the law.”

The charges against Presti stem from a decision by the bar’s owners to defy a state ban on indoor food and drink service by declaring the watering hole an “autonomous zone.”

Presti was first arrested Dec. 1 after plainclothes sheriff’s deputies entered the bar and ordered food in exchange for a mandatory $40 “donation.” Sheriff Joseph Fucito said Presti was uncooperative and he was taken away in handcuffs as the bar’s supporters jeered.

Deputies attempted to arrest Presti again on Dec. 6 after seeing that the bar was letting patrons in through a back door despite being ordered to close entirely, authorities said. That’s when he got into his car and struck the deputy, Fucito said.

A message seeking comment was left with Presti’s lawyer. The lawyer, Mark Fonte, previously derided sheriff's deputies as “wannabe cops,"...