Jul 7, 2008 7:51 pm US/Eastern
Cops: Man Beats Suspected Yankees Fan With Bat
FALMOUTH, Mass. (AP) ―
A Cape Cod man pleaded not guilty Monday to charges he beat another man with a baseball bat because he thought the man was a New York Yankees fan.
Robert Correia, 20, entered the plea at his arraignment in Falmouth District Court on charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and malicious damage to a motor vehicle. He was ordered held without bail until a hearing Wednesday.
According to police, Correia and others spotted a car with New York license plates leaving Falmouth's fireworks display Friday. The group approached the car and began yelling about the Yankees, according to the police report.
Police did not identify the victim, but the New York Post identified him as William Nestor, 29, of Northport, N.Y. Nestor said his family was traveling in two cars and stuck in heavy traffic after the fireworks on Cape Cod when he was attacked.
"They were yelling, 'Yankees! Yankees!"' Nestor told the newspaper. "When they saw the plates, they came at me."
A Falmouth police report said that after Nestor confronted the group of men, Correia went into his nearby apartment and got an aluminum baseball bat, then struck Nestor three times.
But Correia's lawyer, Robert Nolan, said the man was in his apartment when he noticed a fight outside and grabbed a bat to try to break it up.
Correia told Nestor to drive away, but Nestor "came at him" as if he was going to hit him, Nolan said. Correia said he struck Nestor once with the bat.
"He said in self-defense, he swung the bat at the guy and hit him in the arm," the lawyer said.
Nolan said Correia did not participate in any Yankees taunting.
"He was trying to defuse the situation," Nolan said. "The mistake was probably to bring the bat out there."
Nestor said he was not a particularly big baseball fan and didn't know the Red Sox were playing the Yankees over the weekend. The 29-year-old was treated and released from Falmouth Hospital.
In May, a New Hampshire woman was charged with second-degree murder and drunken driving in a fatal crash following an argument over the Yankees and the Red Sox.
Ivonne Hernandez, 43, told police she was trying to scare off a group of people who were hitting her car and yelling after they spotted a Yankees sticker on her rear windshield.
Police said Hernandez drove away from the group, then turned around and headed directly toward them. Matthew Beaudoin, 29, of Nashua, was killed, and a woman suffered minor injuries.
(© 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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