That's actually addressed in the article if you read deep enough. The judge praises the prosecutor for cutting the case off halfway and asking it thrown out af

That's actually addressed in the article if you read deep enough. The judge praises the prosecutor for cutting the case off halfway and asking it thrown out after they heard from the defendant. They did have a video of a guy giving both middle fingers and making a motion that could ambiguously look like throat slashing. Now it wasn't that and the guy had a credible explanation of why and his neighbor is both a bad driver and a paranoid nutjob, most of which was proven by the paranoid guy's own videos wherein he (but not his innocent neighbor) can be seen doing all manner of things that might credibly be offenses like driving over the limit, driving dangerously and not slowing around kids, etc. So it's not too clear to me what the prosecutor knew and when, beyond that video, but at least when the evidence did come out, they folded immediately, which makes me believe they must not have known that earlier.