WESTFIELD – A man suffered significant head injuries after a brawl broke out involving seven men.
Alexsander Rafalskiy, 30, of Russell, was arraigned in Westfield District Court Monday on charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and mayhem, according to court records.
Police records also include the charge of armed assault with intent to murder, maim or disfigure and describes the assault and battery with a dangerous weapon charge by adding “with serious bodily injury.”
Massachusetts General Law explains that mayhem is maiming or disfiguring, in various ways, with malicious intent and is punishable by not more than 20 years in state prison or by a fine of not more than $1,000 and imprisonment in jail for not more than two and half years, according to malegislature.gov.
On July 6 at approximately 11 p.m. the victim was at the Westfield truck stop located behind the Holiday Inn Express on Southampton Road when he was confronted by five men, according to police records.
One man, Igor Pylypenko, approached the victim in an aggressive manner, as stated in Westfield Police Sgt. Stephan Dickinson’s report.
Meanwhile, the victim’s friend came over to try to intervene when he saw that the victim was outnumbered.
The victim pushed Pylypenko away while the victim’s friend tried to pull the victim away from Pylypenko, but the suspect allegedly managed to punch the victim with a closed right fist on the left side of the victim’s face/head, according to police records.
The punch caused the victim to stagger and fall back. While the friend tried to guide the victim away from the five men, Rafalskiy allegedly took a glass beer bottle and smashed it on the left side of the victim’s temple/face, according to Dickinson’s report.
The victim lost consciousness and fell to the pavement and bumped the back of his head. At this point, the five men took off in Rafalskiy’s black SUV.
The victim received eight stitches for the laceration caused by the glass bottle, which will leave a scar, subarachnoid hemorrhage and temporal branch nerve injury, according to police records.
“Subarachnoid hemorrhage is bleeding in the area between the brain and the thin tissues that cover the brain,” according to the Medline Plus website, which is information provided by the National Institutes of Health.
The same website explains that temporal branch nerve injury is a transient paralysis.
The victim identified Pylypenko in a lineup while his friend was able to identify both Pylypenko and Rafalskiy in separate lineups.
Police sought a warrant to arrest Rafalskiy because of the severity of the crime, the fact that Dickinson had trouble locating the suspect and due to the fact that Rafalskiy is a cross-country truck driver who leaves the area for extended periods of time.
No charges have yet been filed against Pylypenko.
The police records do not explain what may have precipitated this assault.
Rafalskiy was released Monday on his personal recognizance and will return to court for a hearing on September 28.
