Sucker punch suspect eyes plea deal

WEST CHESTER » The man who threw what authorities characterize as a “sucker punch” at a disabled man outside a borough convenience store, setting off an internet firestorm and leading to a regional manhunt, intends to enter a guilty plea in his assault case next week, his attorney confirmed Friday.

Barry Robert Baker Jr. will plead guilty to simple assault and related charges on Wednesday before Common Pleas Judge William P. Mahon, deferring sentencing until later and leaving it up to the judge what his punishment will be.

Defense attorney Thomas Purl of Downingtown, who represents Baker, said his client would reject the proposed sentence offered by the prosecutor in the case, Assistant District Attorney Cynthia Morgan. That sentence called for one to two years in a state prison for the assault charge.

In an interview at the Chester County Prison with the Daily Local News last month, Baker ac-

knowledged that he was guilty of the assault, but hesitated on what sentence he felt he deserved.

“I have no idea what’s going to happen,” he said, at the time noting he could either accept the prosecution’s plea offer or plead guilty and leave the sentence up to Mahon. ”State prison probably. Anything is better than here,” Baker said of the county prison, where he has been put on 24-hours-a-day restriction and held in solitary confinement following a scuffle with corrections officers.

“I just want to get my life back. I take full responsibility for my actions. Nothing justifies what I did,” he said. “It’s been a big mess, I’ll tell you that.”

On Friday Purl said he did not know what would happen with the other charges that Baker faces stemming from his alleged flight from prosecution following the furor that greeted him when authorities released a video taken of the “sucker punch.” Baker said he received death threats and had to move; police said he purposefully avoided responding to two courtissued bench warrants on a probation violation and Domestic Relations case.

Baker could opt for a universal resolution of all of the cases against him, or take them one at a time. Mahon has discretion on whether to run sentences consecutively – one after another – or concurrently – all at the same time.

Morgan declined comment.

Baker, 29, formerly of East Fallowfield but who was staying with his girlfriend at her home in Delaware when arrested, was not in the courtroom when Purl informed Mahon that his client was going to plead guilty. Morgan asked that the hearing be held Wednesday so that the victim of the assault, who has not been publicly identified, could be present.

The case has been the center of widespread media attention since it was announced and a video showing the assault was released to the public by law enforcement authorities.

The video shows a 22-year-old man entering and leaving a convenience store in West Chester in the early morning hours of May 10 when Baker, standing outside the store, without warning punched him in the face. The man was stunned but not seriously injured, and Baker walked from the scene only to be taken into custody by police a short time later.

But while Baker’s actions amounted to little more than second-degree misdemeanor charges and two summary offenses, the circumstances surrounding the alleged assault and the reaction to it turned the matter into the focus of scorn across the country and propelled Baker into a “most wanted” fugitive who now faces even greater criminal liability.

The man who Baker punched – an incident that was captured on the store’s video surveillance camera – suffers from cerebral palsy, according to authorities. Baker was seen mocking the way the man walked into and out of the store before throwing the punch. West Chester Police Chief Scott Bohn, after watching the video, labelled Baker’s actions “appalling.”

Baker was charged with the assault a short while after the incident, and was scheduled to attend a preliminary hearing in late May. But when the release of the video showing what happened went viral on the Internet, Baker allegedly decided to skip town. He was eventually captured at a Uwchlan hotel in June.

Baker’s younger brother, Robert Baker, pleaded guilty earlier this week to aggravated assault charges stemming from a St. Patrick’s Day incident in which he headbutted a West Goshen officer in the abdomen while being treated at the Chester County Hospital for extreme intoxication. In addition, their father, Barry Robert Baker Sr., is awaiting a preliminary hearing in October on charges he sold drugs to an undercover informant.

Barry Baker