The Tour de France spectator who caused a massive crash will face trial for reckless endangerment, prosecutor says

• The woman who caused a huge crash at the Tour de France faces trial in October, a prosecutor said.
• She's been charged with reckless endangerment and involuntarily causing injuries, one report said.
• A prison sentence is thought to be unlikely, but she could face a fine of up to $18,000.

The spectator who caused a huge crash on the first day of the Tour de France has been charged with "reckless endangerment and involuntarily causing injuries," a local prosecutor cited by The New York Times said Thursday.

Camille Miansoni, the prosecutor in Brest, where the crash took place, said the spectator would be tried by a criminal court on October 14, both The Times and AFP reported.

"She expressed a feeling of shame, of fear for the consequences of her actions," said Miansoni of the woman at a news conference.

"She said she is worried about the media attention for what she has called her 'stupidity,'" Miansoni added.

The woman has not been named publicly but is believed to be 30 years old and from close to Brest.

She caused the crash when she held up a sign wishing luck to her grandparents, whom Miansoni described as "unconditional, assiduous fans of the Tour de France," The Times reported.

The German cyclist Tony Martin of the Jumbo-Visma team collided with the sign, falling and starting a chain reaction that saw dozens of riders fall off their bikes.

-NBC Sports (@NBCSports) June 26, 2021

Many riders suffered injuries and one, Jasha Sütterlin, also from Germany, was forced to withdraw at the site of the crash.

If found guilty, the woman faces a maximum fine of $18,000 and a possible year in prison, although jail time is thought to be unlikely as the woman has no criminal record, The Times reported.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Tour organizer, ASO, said it had dropped its plans to sue the spectator.

"The incident has been blown out of all proportion so we'd like to calm things down now that the message has got across that the roadside fans need to be careful," the race's director, Christian Prudhomme, said.

The woman turned herself in on Wednesday.

Miansoni said the police had identified her and were planning to arrest her before she and her partner showed up at a local police station.

Miansoni said, "She needed that time to process, in a way, what had happened to her."