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Warren man charged with assaulting four people during argument early Sunday in Hubbard
By Ed Runyan
GIRARD
A Warren man was arraigned Monday in Girard Municipal Court, charged with two felony offenses and two misdemeanors after he purportedly punched three men and a woman early Sunday on North Main Street in Hubbard – causing one of the victims to suffer a skull fracture.
Joshua L. Wauer, 29, of Bonnie Brae Avenue Northeast, is charged with felonious assault, felony theft and two counts of misdemeanor assault and was taken to the Trumbull County Jail after the 2:24 a.m. confrontation.
Judge Jeff Adler set bond at $50,000 on the four charges. Wauer pleaded not guilty on the two misdemeanors; no plea was required on the felonies.
Hubbard police reported that Wauer’s girlfriend said the dispute began when two men in a vehicle made a sexual comment about her. The men denied making the remark.
Police said Wauer then went to the car and punched the driver, 25, of Masury, six to seven times in the side of the head through the open car window, then went to the other side of the car and punched the other male, 24, of Hubbard, at least several times in the head.
Then, Wauer “engaged” another man, James V. MacIntyre, 33, of Hubbard, in the street, when MacIntyre came to “break up” the fight, police said.
Wauer struck MacIntyre “hard directly in the face, causing MacIntyre to fall to the street, striking his head hard,” police said. MacIntyre was unconscious in the middle of the street with about seven people around him when police arrived.
Witnesses said Wauer and his girlfriend went from there to a parking lot nearby, where a woman, 26, of Hubbard, took out her cellphone and told Wauer and his girlfriend she was getting the license-plate number of their vehicle.
But Wauer’s girlfriend stood in front of the license plate, police said. Wauer then grabbed the cellphone from the woman’s hand and punched her hard in the face, causing her to fall to the parking lot, also unconsicous, police said.
The woman said when she awoke, everyone was gone.
MacIntyre was conscious in St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital Sunday night with a skull fracture and blood clot, police said.
The woman who was injured declined to be taken in an ambulance but later went to ValleyCare Northside Hospital for treatment of swelling on the side of her face and abrasions on her elbow and swelling on her knee.
A Hubbard police officer, with assistance from Hubbard Township Police Chief Todd Coonce, arrested Wauer on Interstate 80 west of Hubbard a short time after the incident.
Police said they found the injured woman’s cellphone at North Main and Mock streets, and its screen was shattered, but police were going to attempt to retrieve photos from it that the woman said she took.
Wauer was sentenced to one year in prison in January 2010 after being convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm for a 2009 incident in Warren.
Sunday’s incident occurred not far from where Cody Pitts, 26, of Hubbard was found dead from a single gunshot wound in March. Police still are investigating that case.
A witness spotted Pitts’ body in the street at 3:30 a.m. March 7.