
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, August 17, 1995                   TAG: 9508170075
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

JURY GIVES $10,000 FOR ASSAULT

A Roanoke jury has awarded $10,000 to a man who said he was assaulted by a security guard last year at Festival in the Park.

Robert E. Mansfield III testified Monday in Roanoke Circuit Court that Robert A. Lewis, a security guard employed by Borg Warner Protective Services Corp. to direct traffic at the festival, cursed him and hit him in the mouth May 28, 1994.

After he mistakenly drove into a restricted area near Wiley Drive, Mansfield told the jury, Lewis placed his face within inches of Mansfield's and cursed him.

``His testimony was that if he had rolled up his window, it would have hit [Lewis] in the nose,'' said David Bullington, a Vinton lawyer who represented Mansfield.

Mansfield testified that Lewis then struck him in the mouth with the heel of his hand. The blow loosened a tooth, he said, causing bleeding and other injuries.

Lewis, however, testified that any contact he may have had with Mansfield was accidental.

Lewis, who no longer works as a security guard, told the jury that Mansfield was inadvertently spitting as they talked and that he put his hand a few inches from his face to shield himself. At that point, he said, his hand accidentally struck Mansfield in the mouth.

Jim Guynn, a Roanoke lawyer who represented Lewis, described the incident as an accident and pointed out that criminal charges against his client had been dismissed.

But after hearing a day of testimony, the jury ordered Lewis and his employer to pay $10,000 in damages. Mansfield's lawyer had asked for $25,000.

Roanoke and Festival in the Park also had been named in the lawsuit but were dismissed as defendants before it went to trial.

by CNB