Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 9, 1993 TAG: 9306090186
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
Anthony Goins, 22, and Donta Bundick, 18, of Roanoke, were charged in April by the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office with the attack. The 15-year-old was beaten with a baseball bat and threatened with a razor-knife, he testified Tuesday in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.
Two other people also face charges in the incident. Ethan T. Charlton, 18, of Foundry Place, Radford, was charged with malicious wounding. His preliminary hearing is set for July 1. A 17-year-old boy also faces charges of abduction and malicious wounding.
The Dublin teen testified Tuesday that he was walking on Baskerville Street when three men approached him and accused him of working with police.
A few days earlier, a Radford grand jury had handed down several drug indictments. Two of those indictments were against Goins, charging him with two counts of distributing cocaine.
Pulaski County authorities said in April there was no evidence the boy was an informant, adding that police don't use juveniles as informants.
The boy said the men held on to him, took him inside a trailer where Goins reached for a razor blade and adhesive tape. Bundick had a wooden bat, the teen said.
A fourth person, the 17-year-old boy, joined the other three in taking him back outside, and showed him an indictment issued by the grand jury.
He said he was then hit in the head by Goins, hit with a bat by Bundick and struck in the jaw by the 17-year-old.
The teen said he then was led to some nearby railroad tracks.
"They walked me down and Tony [Goins] held the razor up to my throat. [He] said `If you move, I'll cut you.' "
The boy said he was again struck with the bat.
The teen rolled away and his attackers left in a car driven by another person, he testified.
He went to a nearby store and an employee called for an ambulance. The boy said his face and mouth were bleeding and his nose and jaw were broken. He said he also had laser surgery on one of his eyes.
Sgt. Mike Alderman of the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office said Bundick admitted having the baseball bat inside the trailer but denied using it to attack the teen-ager. Alderman said Goins admitted holding the razor to the boy's throat. Alderman said Goins said the boy was screaming as they walked down the street and he put the razor to his throat and told him to be quiet.
Goins and Bundick did not testify.
Mark Hicks, Goins' attorney, unsuccessfully argued that there was not enough evidence to support the abduction charge. He said the boy testified no one told him he was not free to leave at the railroad tracks.
Judge William Thomas also denied Hick's contention there was insufficient evidence of malicious wounding.
Hicks and Bundick's attorney, Wayne Sawyers, had argued the evidence leaned more toward an assault and battery charge than one of malicious wounding. Sawyers also said there was no testimony that the teen-ager actually saw Bundick strike him.
In arguing for the abduction charge, Doug Schroder, assistant commonwealth's attorney, told the judge that if a picture is worth a thousand words, "holding someone by the throat and dragging them in the house must speak a million."
by CNB