Posted on 08/18/2004 8:31:56 AM PDT by Graybeard58
North Royalton- Five adults and one juvenile who allegedly took part in the beating and sodomy of a man they found peeping into the bedroom window of a sleeping 5-year-old girl must now answer criminal charges.
The adults - one of whom is the girl's mother - could face charges that carry the death penalty if Mario Russo dies, police said. Russo, 44, remains unconscious on a ventilator at MetroHealth Medical Center, where officials described his condition as critical.
Police said apartment security cameras recorded Russo peering into the girl's window Saturday morning and the beating, and gave officers a minute-by-minute record of the crime.
"This is one of the tightest cases I've ever had," North Royalton Detective Jay Drake said. "Everything's on tape."
One woman, Athena Lemieux, 20, of Elyria, a part-time exotic dancer at Bugsy's Speakeasy on West 25th Street, faces rape and felonious assault charges because police say she inserted a foot-long tree branch into Russo's rectum.
Charged with felonious assault and complicity to commit rape were the 5-year-old's mother, Stacy Umstott, 28, of North Royalton, also an exotic dancer at Bugsy's; her boyfriend, Khalid Arafat, 34, of Cleveland; Nicholas Phipps, 21, of Cleveland; and Brandon Breeden, 19, of Elyria.
A sixth person, Breeden's 15-year-old girlfriend from Mentor, was also arrested and released to her aunt. She will face charges in Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court but cannot receive the death penalty because of her age.
Russo lives in an apartment building next to Umstott's.
Parma Municipal Judge Mary Dunning set the bonds for each of the adults at $3 million.
This is what Drake said happened:
Umstott was having a party in her ground-floor suite in the Bunker Ridge Apartments on Ridge Road after arriving home with the others at 3:30 a.m. At 4:10 a.m., the video shows that Russo walked up to the apartment window of the room where Umstott's 5-year-old daughter was sleeping and looked in.
At 4:21 a.m., Phipps went to his car to get a CD and noticed Russo standing in the bushes next to the bedroom window facing Ridge Road. Russo was masturbating with his pants partially down.
Phipps went to get the others and all six came out of the apartment, pulled Russo out of the bushes and began punching, stomping and kicking him. They left him on the ground, but returned to continue their assault.
The video shows Russo lay unconscious on the ground for an hour and nine minutes after the initial beating. His assailants came out to see if he was still alive and apparently even planned to dump his body on Cleveland's West Side if he died, Drake said.
They spotted one of the four video cameras at one point and ripped it from above the entrance to the building, Drake said. Police found the camera inside the apartment.
At 5:31 a.m., police received a call from a resident of the apartment building who said she heard a man moaning.
Sgt. John Elek, the first policeman to arrive on the scene, said he had never seen anyone beaten so violently. Russo was lying in a large pool of blood. Drake said his assailants had kicked him so hard his dentures had flown out of his mouth. He was flown by helicopter to Metro Health.
All of the de fendants ex cept Arafat and the juvenile waived their preliminary hearings and remain in County Jail. Arafat remains in North Royalton City Jail and has a preliminary hearing scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday.
Drake said the suspects admitted drinking and using drugs during the evening. Marijuana was found in the apartment.
Police said one of the suspects rationalized their behavior saying, "It was not the smartest thing we've done . . . But he deserved it."
What's ironic is that they did to this pervert exactly what the crooks in Jail would have done to him had they caught him and sent him to jail. IMHO they just tried to save the taxpayers some money :P
yeah yeah I know, it's not proper justice. But even if it's not, the results would have been the same had he gone to jail.
Wow. That's a scary thought. Sounds like Soviet Russia.
Criminals have rights until they are convicted in a court of laws. Until then, they have all their civil rights, which include the right not to be beaten and raped by a band of thugs.
Criminals have "rights" in court. They don't have "rights" while committing their crimes. Certainly not if caught by the victims or by victims kin or parents if the victims are minors. A criminal has no right to be on my property, has no right to be peeping in my house, has no right to be whacking off to the sight of a little girl, and has no right to be potentially casing out a kidnapping.
Criminal "rights" are applicable against the government, not the victims.
You lose your civil rights to avoid violence at the hands of others as soon as you step onto another's property and proceed to commit crimes. I referenced the law of my state on this matter already here.
They have nothing to worry about then since they are perverts and criminals too.
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe the perp was just a sicko with no capacity to commit physical harm while the parents drug parties may be subjecting the girl to all sorts of potential harm. I would not call them saints.
This is what Drake said happened:It sounds like they beat him, left him for an hour, and then came back to check on him. (Yeah, the writing could be better. Journalism isn't the profession it once was.)
Umstott was having a party in her ground-floor suite in the Bunker Ridge Apartments on Ridge Road after arriving home with the others at 3:30 a.m. At 4:10 a.m., the video shows that Russo walked up to the apartment window of the room where Umstott's 5-year-old daughter was sleeping and looked in.
At 4:21 a.m., Phipps went to his car to get a CD and noticed Russo standing in the bushes next to the bedroom window facing Ridge Road. Russo was masturbating with his pants partially down.
Phipps went to get the others and all six came out of the apartment, pulled Russo out of the bushes and began punching, stomping and kicking him. They left him on the ground, but returned to continue their assault.
The video shows Russo lay unconscious on the ground for an hour and nine minutes after the initial beating. His assailants came out to see if he was still alive and apparently even planned to dump his body on Cleveland's West Side if he died, Drake said.
They spotted one of the four video cameras at one point and ripped it from above the entrance to the building, Drake said. Police found the camera inside the apartment.
At 5:31 a.m., police received a call from a resident of the apartment building who said she heard a man moaning.
Yes. Generally speaking, past criminal conduct by the victim is inadmissible in court. There are some exceptions (such as showing a modus operandi for a bank robber) but none of them would apply here. The jury wouldn't even get to hear that the victim was a scumbag.
the man was engaging in perverted behavior and should be punished for the crime he committed also
Agreed. Vigilante justice is not the proper punishment, though.
is he guilty of raping a prostitute who had many affairs with many people for money the alleged victim?
From a legal point of view, that is the only question that needs to be answered. Whether she was a whore and golddigger is irrelevant.
One less pervert. Good.
OK, fair enough, I read it wrong and thought they came out to wail on him some more. At that point, though, when they came out again, they should've called the cops and EMS. The mere fact that they were standing out there discussing dumping the body if the guy died, and the fact that they didn't get the perv some medical help, indicates to me that they knew they'd really screwed up.
This went way past merely crime prevention, apprehension, or even vigilante justice, and shot straight over into assault and torture for the hell of it. Seeking the death penalty would be overkill (pun intended), but some nice long prison sentences are sure warranted.
And if the perv recovers from the beatdown...prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law and throw him under the jail too.
}:-)4
I wouldn't beat him. I'd shoot him. Repeatedly. "I was afraid for my daughter's safety, so I emptied the magazine."
Wow. So in PA, if a guy lets his dog take a dump in my yard, then walks away from it without cleaning it up, I can shoot him (as long as there's a pooper-scooper ordinance)? Dude, I am so moving!
Based on some of those pictures, I hope they have dim lights at Bugsy's Speakeasy.
Two points.
First, as others have pointed out, the beating became premeditated when the perps returned for another round.
Second, you may well be right that a jury would refuse to convict on murder one (should the pervert die). I can't help that. They should though, and failing that, the prosecutor should make a good faith effort to secure the best conviction he can. Being a politician, he may chicken out and shirk his solemn duty, as past DAs presented with the faits accomplis of lynch mobs have frequently done. I can't help that either. Each of us is morally responsible for his own acts; if others frustrate our attempts by refusing to cooperate, they will have to answer for it.
By this reasoning, you can't shoot a person attempting a kidnapping.
By my state's law: "The use of deadly force is not justifiable under this section unless the actor believes that such force is necessary to protect himself against death, serious bodily injury, kidnapping or sexual intercourse compelled by force or threat ... The use of force upon or toward the person of another is justifiable to protect a third person when the actor believes that his intervention is necessary for the protection of such other person."
Do you see a difference? I believe anyone looking in my little girl's window and whacking off is a potential and likely threat to kidnap and rape them. Therefore, I can shoot/beat them, especially if they are on my property.
They can use reasonable amounts of force to detain him.
Pennsylvania law presents this as an either/or option.
"Use of confinement as protective force.--The justification afforded by this section extends to the use of confinement as protective force only if the actor takes all reasonable measures to terminate the confinement as soon as he knows that he safely can, unless the person confined has been arrested on a charge of crime."
The law doesn't say you can only confine them. Rather, it says you may also confine them.
Seeing as the only crime Louima committed was getting into a bar brawl and mouthing off to cops, I think this statement says a lot about you. And, of course, you miss the point that cops are not the ones tasked with punishing criminals.
Cherusker - a German tribe. Hermann the Cherusker and Co. annhilated three Roman legions under the command of Varus in the Teutoburger Wald in AD 9. Started over something about self-defense and wanting to be free of Roman Imperial domination.
Agreed. From the facts at hand, though, I'd say there's a very strong case for manslaughter; civilized people stop once the criminal has been subdued.
I'll second that, and add that in my view five people who could gleefully beat and sodomize a man nearly to death, are some evil bastards, and based on what I know more twisted, dangerous, and devoid of morality then the sick perp.
I sure as Hell wouldn't want them living next to me, or walking the streets for that matter. Lock them up and throw away the key.
Apparently, its all on videotape, and he was whacking off right there and they caught him.
You might have a better case then these 5, certainly. It would be risky, though. Why not just hold him at gunpoint until the police arrive?
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