Guilty plea in ‘sucker punch’ case

Barry Baker Jr. faces maximum sentence of two to four years in state prison

WEST CHESTER » Barry Robert Baker Jr., the former East Fallowfield man who threw a “sucker punch” at a disabled man and became infamous on social media for doing so as a surveillance video of the incident began circulating on the internet, pleaded guilty Monday to misdemeanor charges in his case.

The pleas before Common Pleas Judge William P. Mahon came hours before a jury was to have been chosen for trial on the assault charge. They had stalled last week when Baker, a self-employed tree service owner with a string of petty criminal cases on his past, balked at agreeing with the prosecution as to the specifics of what had happened the night of the assault.

This time, however, Baker did not hesitate to accept the facts as they were read by Assistant District Attorney Cynthia Morgan, telling Mahon that what she said happened was accurate.

“Are you pleading guilty to these charges because you are guilty of them?” Mahon asked Baker at the conclusion of the hearing. “Yes, your honor,” Baker answered softly.

Sentencing will come at a later date, after a pre-sentencing investigation is completed, Mahon said. Baker, 29, of Georgetown, Delaware, faces a possible maximum sentence of two to four years in a state prison on the charges of simple assault and flight to avoid apprehension. He could also be sentenced to a maximum of 90 days in prison for the summary charge of disorderly conduct involving fighting.

Baker had little to say during the proceeding, which took longer than normal for a plea to rather minor charges. He did tell Mahon

that he wanted to address the victim in the case at some time, but Mahon said that would come at sentencing.

The victim, 22-yearold Michael Patrick Ryan, who has not spoken publicly about the matter since it occurred and went viral in May, was seated in the courtroom with his father, Pat Ryan, owner of Ryan’s Pub bar and restaurant in West Chester. He declined comment as he left the courtroom with Morgan and West Chester Officer Matthew Simcox, who had arrested Baker about four months ago.

Morgan also declined comment. She is reportedly seeking a state prison sentence on the charges.

On Wednesday, Baker had refused to agree that he had punched Ryan in the face without warning or provocation, and without ever having encountered him before or engaging in any conversation with him. He had insisted in an interview with the Daily Local News at Chester County Prison — where he has been held on bail since his arrest in June — that Ryan and he had a confrontation at a West Chester bar moments before the assault in the early morning hours of May 10. He said Ryan had begun “running his mouth” when the two met again outside the 7-Eleven store on South High Street, making him angry and leading to the “sucker punch.”

He indicated that video evidence from the bar, Barnaby’s of West Chester, would support his version of events.

But in discussing the case in the proceeding, Morgan told Mahon that there had been no evidence that showed Ryan was at the bar that night. A record of ID card “swipes” that are required at Barnaby’s did not have Ryan’s name listed, although it did show Baker’s. Additionally, Ryan’s pay records from the family’s restaurant showed him on duty from 6 p.m. May 9 to 2 a.m. May 10, when the assault took place.

Defense attorney Thomas Purl of Downingtown additionally told Mahon that when he inquired about any video tape from the night that would show if Ryan had been there, he was told that the tapes were routinely reused after 30 days unless they had specific instructions to preserve them. Purl, who got involved in Baker’s case in July, had not done so.

Mahon said the background of what led to the assault ultimately would not have any impact on the guilty plea itself, but that it might have had some at the time of sentencing. Baker’s acknowledgement, however, that Ryan had not provoked him means he will be forced to stand on Morgan’s account.

Morgan made it clear that Baker had acted not only criminally but heinously in the incident. He is seen in footage from a 7-Eleven surveillance camera standing outside the store with a male friend

around 2:15 a.m. May 10 when Ryan pulls up in his car and enters the store. Because he has cerebral palsy, his movement and gait is affected. As he walked, Baker held open the door, then made fun of him after Ryan had gone inside, exaggerating his mannerisms.

Ryan soon comes out of the store, this time Baker imitating his gait to his face. Morgan said Ryan stopped by his car, turned to say something to Baker, but that Baker threw a punch that hit him square in the face. “The victim never said a word to the defendant at the time,” Morgan told Mahon.

Afterwards, Baker walked away from the scene, laughing, Morgan said. When Simcox, on patrol, later stopped him as a suspect, he denied having anything to do with the assault and ran away.

Mahon asked whether what Morgan said was an accurate description of his conduct. “Yes, your honor,” Baker said.

In the prison interview in which he discussed the assault, Baker was asked pointedly why he had mocked Ryan. “Alcohol,”

he said, suggesting he was intoxicated at the time. “It doesn’t justify it. My actions were wrong.”

The flight case involves Baker’s actions after his arrest on the assault charges on May 22. Bench warrants were issued for him for a violation of probation (he had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft charges in 2010) and for failing to appear for a domestic relations hearing on back child support he owed. Morgan told Mahon that Baker was advised by his then-attorney to turn himself in, but he did not.

Instead, he fled from his home in Delaware and went on the run, she said. Cellphone records showed him talking about driving on back roads at night, sleeping

in the woods, investigating fleeing to Canada or Mexico, and texting his girlfriend and others about “laying low” in Tennessee.

Baker was aware at the time that there was a regional manhunt for him in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland involving U.S. Marshals, Chester County Sheriffs, and state and local police, the prosecutor said.

“He stated he was not going back to prison, and that he would go to Canada and wait seven years until things died down,” Morgan said. “Despite pleas from friends and his fiancée, he did not turn himself in.”

Baker was apprehended in the early morning of June 5, hiding in the bathroom of a room at the Clarion

Hotel on Pottstown Pike in Exton, in a room that had been booked under a false name.

Again, Baker acknowledged without dispute that what Morgan said is what he had done. Earlier, he told the Daily Local News that he had not taken these extraordinary steps to hide from police, and that he only learned of the manhunt after he had been picked up.

After the hour-long proceeding, at which Mahon made sure Baker knew the rights that he was giving up by pleading guilty and the possible consequences in doing so, Baker was returned to county prison.

Barry Baker Jr.