Man charged in death of 80-year-old after mask dispute in upstate New York bar
CNN)A man has been charged in the death of an 80-year old man who died last week after a confrontation at a bar about not wearing a mask and treating bar-staff poorly in upstate New York, according to the Erie County district attorney.
Donald Lewinski, 65, is facing a charge of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Rocco Sapienza, Erie County District Attorney John Flynn announced Monday.
Sapienza allegedly confronted Lewinski at a West Seneca bar near Buffalo on September 26 about how he spoke to the bar staff and for not regularly wearing a mask as Lewinski brought out buckets of beer to a band playing outside, Flynn said.
When Lewinski came back inside the bar, he allegedly shoved Sapienza to the ground.
"He was pretty much in an unresponsive condition right away. He went into a seizure right away there on the floor of the bar," Flynn said.
After Sapienza was taken to the Erie County Medical Center, he remained unresponsive until he succumbed to his injuries on September 30, Flynn said.
The preliminary autopsy results showed that Sapienza died from blunt force trauma to the head, Flynn said.
"I get the impression from witness statements that these two just didn't like one another ... these two were butting heads from minute one there," Flynn explained.
"So there were other things besides the mask that were involved here," the district attorney said.
The confrontation was recorded on video, but there was no audio, Flynn said.
http://www.cnn.com/2020/10/06/us/new-york-mask-bar-death-trnd/index.html
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