WESTFIELD – A Southwick man will be on probation for a year after he acknowledged that the Commonwealth could secure guilty findings for assault charges brought by Southwick police.
Three co-defendants had been acquitted in a jury trial last June.
Justin T. Mountain, 25, of 36 Davis Road, Southwick, had been arraigned for charges of aggravated assault and battery, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and assault and battery brought by Southwick police after an incident at a June, 2012, party at a Feeding Hills Road address in Southwick.
Also arrested for the same charges were Brian Giesing, 23 of 155 River St., West Springfield, Andrew Bishop, 24, of 9 Feeding Hills Road, Southwick, and Corey Mihalski, 24, of 194 Mort Vining Road, Southwick.
The charges were brought by Officer Thomas Krutka after his investigation into a complaint brought by a city resident who claimed that he had been beaten by the four men at a party at Bishop’s house.
In a document filed at Westfield District Court, Krutka reports that the victim said that he had been at the party when he was approached by Giesing who demanded to know why the victim was speaking with his girlfriend.
The man said that, after he told Giesing that he was “just talking”, the man began to punch him.
He told Krutka that the host of the party, Bishop “came running into the living room and began to push (the victim) and then started to punch him.”
The victim said that, because of the injuries he sustained, “he does not recall anything else that happened to him other than being punched and kicked.”
Krutka reports that he spoke with four witnesses who took up the narrative and told him that the victim attempted to flee but only got as far as the kitchen before his assailants caught up to him. The attack continued and Mountain and Mihalski “joined in the fight and began to kick and punch (the victim).”
Krutka reports the witnesses told him that the victim “fell to the ground and was trying to cover his head with his arms and hands” as the four offenders “continued to punch, kick, and stomp” him.
Krutka was told that two of the witnesses “were trying diligently to fight off the offenders in an effort to stop the attack” but the two men said that the victim “eventually was lying lifeless on the ground” and both feared that their friend “was seriously injured or even dead.”
Krutka reports that one witness “stated that the floor was covered in beer and blood. He stated that someone would kick (the victim) and he would actually slide across the floor, then, someone else would kick him and he would slide back.”
Both said that the living room hallway and the kitchen area were all covered in blood and “it looked like something you would see in a movie.”
Two female witnesses “stated that they saw (the victim) lying on the ground and feared that he actually had been killed. They stated he was lifeless and they were screaming for the four offenders to stop.”
The victim’s two friends were eventually able to drag him from the house but the man attempting to get the victim’s apparently lifeless body into a vehicle was unable to do so and had to switch places with his larger friend, who was fighting a rear guard action “holding people off at the door”, so the bigger man could lift the victim into their vehicle.
One of the witnesses said that, on their way to the hospital he was trying to elicit signs of life from the victim which eventually came when the man moved his leg and began to vomit.
At the hospital, the victim was found to have injuries including a fractured left orbit and other injures around his eye.
The trial for the four suspects began June 18, 2013 before Judge Philip A. Contant and lasted until June 24 but, before it was over, the suspects apparently had a falling out.
Mountain’s attorney, Maria T. Barroso of Springfield, filed a motion to separate her client’s case from the co-defendants because “one or more co-defendants may be stating that my client, Justin Mountain, was either the first aggressor and/or that he did the most damage to the alleged victim.”
In addition, Barroso said that her client had been accused in court by both of her co-counsels of sending “inculpatory texts” (text messages imputing guilt) to “at least one co-defendant and other potential witnesses.”
Contant denied her motion but on June 21 he declared a mistrial for Mountain after it was learned that his attorney had been involved in a case Donald Stolgitis of Amherst, the attorney for Bishop and Giesing, said was “a case that we intend to impeach a witness with.”
The jury in the case found all three of the remaining defendants not guilty of all three charges.
When Mountain appeared again before Contant for his trial, on Friday, Nov. 22, he did not contest the charges and submitted to facts sufficient to warrant guilty findings for all three charges.
Contant ordered the Mountain make no threats or violence toward the victim and ordered that he complete an anger management program. Mountain was placed on probation for one year and assessed $90.
