DENVER A Towaoc man pleaded guilty Friday to assault in a case where prosecutors say one of the victims was a witness in a murder case.
Benny Pargin Watts, 24, faces a likely sentence of 21 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to assault resulting in serious bodily injury.
A grand jury had indicted Watts on two other counts of assault with a deadly weapon against two victims: Sandoval Lopez and Linberg Steven Root.
But prosecutors dropped the two other counts in exchange for Watts guilty plea to assaulting Lopez.
Watts spoke softly and sparingly at his hearing Friday.
When U.S. District Judge William Martinez asked him to describe what happened, Watts replied, I assaulted Sandoval Lopez. We got into a fight.
Martinez asked what injury Lopez received.
Broken jaw, Watts answered.
Prosecutors claim Watts hit Lopez across the face with a baseball bat. Watts and his lawyer, Robert Berger, say he did not use a bat.
Watts and a group of five or six juveniles approached Lopez and Root after a separate altercation outside a Towaoc house the night of March 28, according to an arrest affidavit by FBI Special Agent Margaret Russin.
Root was a witness in a 2003 murder case. The defendant, Nathaniel Taylor, was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Watts is Taylors half-brother, and Root said Watts told him during the beating, This is for my brother Nathaniel Taylor!
But prosecutors will drop the charge for assaulting Root because of the plea deal.
Watts sentencing hearing is scheduled for Dec. 30 in Denver. He faces a maximum term of 10 years in prison, although prosecutors and Berger have agreed that a 21-month sentence would be appropriate.
The case was in federal court because both Watts and the victims are Ute Mountain Ute tribal members.
Reach Joe Hanel at [email protected].
