Des Moines activist guilty of theft for taking police flyer

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A judge has found a Des Moines activist guilty of a felony theft count for taking a police flyer used to identify protesters from an officer’s back pocket during a protest last year.

Alexandria Dea, 27, was found guilty of first-degree theft Monday by Judge David Porter after she waived her right to a jury trial and consented to allow the judge to base his decision on facts already on the record, the Des Moines Register reported.

Dea is expected to seek a deferred judgment when she’s sentenced on Dec. 7.

Prosecutors have said Dea picked up and threw a police radio that fell to the ground as the officer scuffled with a protester on July 1, 2020. She was also accused of taking the intelligence bulletin from an officer’s back pocket during the confrontation, then gave it to another activist who gave it to a television reporter.

Dea and the other activist had also initially been charged with a rarely-used count of leaking intelligence data, but the charge was dismissed in July after a judge ruled that the bulletin did not count as “intelligence data.”