Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 30, 1993 TAG: 9310300060
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By Michael Stowe STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
Donta Bundick, 18, faced charges of malicious wounding and abduction. But in Pulaski County Circuit Court Friday, the abduction charge was dropped and Bundick pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding.
During a preliminary hearing earlier this year, the 15-year-old victim testified that he was beaten with a baseball bat and threatened with a razor-knife in April after being approached by three people while he was walking on Baskerville Street. The men accused him of working with police.
A Radford grand jury had handed down drug indictments a few days earlier, including two charging one of the men with two counts of distributing cocaine. The boy said he was taken into a trailer and later was struck with a bat and beaten. He sustained a broken nose and jaw and had to have laser surgery on an eye.
Doug Schroder, assistant commonwealth's attorney, told Judge Dow Owens that the teen-ager told authorities he was attacked by Bundick, Ethan Charlton, Anthony Goins and a teen-ager.
The first assault lasted about 45 seconds, then the Dublin teen was taken about 400 feet away where he was beaten again for about 30 seconds.
The youth - bleeding from the face and the mouth - fled to a nearby gasoline station and the rescue squad was called, Schroder said.
Bundick first told an investigator that he was at the trailer where the first assault occurred but denied participating in the attack, Schroder said. But In July, Schroder said, Bundick told authorities he kneed the teen twice in the stomach and only carried the bat that was used in the attack, Schroder said.
Schroder said the teen-ager was not a police informant.
Bundick will be sentenced later after a pre-sentence report is prepared by a probation officer.
Charlton, 18, of Radford, did not appear in court Friday for his case, where he also was expected to plead guilty to unlawful wounding.
Owens ordered deputies to pick up Charlton and have him held without bond. He had been free in lieu of $5,000 bond, which Owens said would be forfeited.
The third adult co-defendant in the case, Anthony Jerome Goins Jr., 22, of Roanoke, pleaded guilty earlier this year to distributing cocaine, malicious wounding and abduction in Pulaski County.
Goins was sentenced to 30 years in prison with half the time suspended. After serving 15 years, he will be placed on probation for five years. He was also ordered to pay a $500 fine and make restitution to the teen-age boy who was injured.
Goins was also found guilty by a Radford jury of one count of distributing cocaine - one of two indictments that apparently led to the teen's beating.
But the jury could not decide on a second cocaine-distribution charge and a new trial is set for Nov. 12.
by CNB