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Warren man convicted of felonious assault and robbery in Hubbard confrontation
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Joshua L. Wauer, 30, of Bonnie Brae Avenue Northeast, will be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison April 26 after a jury found him guilty Wednesday of causing a Hubbard man to suffer a fractured skull during a dispute.
Wauer was found guilty before Judge Andrew Logan of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court of felonious assault, robbery, tampering with evidence, misdmeanor assault and driving under a suspension for drunken driving.
The trial lasted three days and included numerous witnesses who testified to what they saw and heard in Hubbard at 2:30 a.m. June 21 as Wauer, his girlfriend and another couple left the Wing Express Reloaded tavern on North Main Street in the downtown.
Witnesses said a Hubbard man in a car uttered a sexual remark about Wauer’s girlfriend that led Wauer to confront the man.
Wauer went to both sides of the car, punching through the window and hitting both men inside. That led to two misdemeanor assault charges.
But as that conflict was winding down, James McIntyre of Hubbard walked into the street to “see what’s going on,” witness Dan DePaul of Hubbard testified Tuesday.
McIntyre and his friend DePaul had been drinking at the Wing Express for several hours before the confrontation, DePaul said.
McIntyre walked over to “de-fuse” the situation, DePaul said. McIntyre put his hands up when he approached Wauer, but the gesture was part of a question of “What’s going on,” and not in preparation to strike Wauer, DePaul said.
“Before [McIntyre] could ever do anything, the defendant just caught him in the face with a punch,” DePaul said.
McIntyre was knocked to the road, hit his head hard, fell unconscious, suffered a fractured skull and missed months of work, Gabe Wildman, an assistant county prosecutor, said in opening statements.
McIntyre’s friends attended to him while they waited for an ambulance, noticed blood coming from McIntyre’s ear and saw that his breathing was shallow. That punch produced the felonious assault charge.
But two females from Hubbard also were nearby at the time of the confrontation, and DePaul asked one of them, Laurel Dugan, to use her phone to follow Wauer and their friends to get a picture of their license plates.
Dugan said Wauer grabbed her hands, which were holding her phone, and struggled with her for about 10 seconds to get the phone.
Eventually, he punched her in the face, knocking her unconscious, Dugan said. When she awoke, everyone and her phone were gone. The phone later was found at North Main and Mock streets, the screen smashed. Dugan had bruises and pain in her head, she said.
The acts involving Dugan were the basis for the robbery and tampering-with-evidence convictions. Wauer was found not guilty of assaulting Dugan.
In opening statements, Wildman called Wauer a “drunken maniac” on a “rampage” who assaulted several people in two minutes, two of whom were left unconscious, then sped out of town. But police spotted Wauer a short time later and took him into custody, Hubbard police said.
Wauer’s attorney, Michael Scala, alleged that McIntyre walked up to Wauer with fists ready to strike, and that McIntyre was intoxicated. “If you are trying to hit somebody, you get hit back,” Scala said of McIntyre.