Fiancèe apologizes for helping to hide ‘sucker punch’ suspect
WEST CHESTER » The former fiancée of the man who threw a sucker punch at a disabled man in West Chester apologized to the victim in court Thursday after pleading guilty to charges that she helped Barry Robert Baker Jr. hide from police who were searching the region for him.
“I was not there,” said Denise Renee Schmidt to Common Pleas Judge William P, Mahon, referring to the now-infamous assault outside a West Chester convenience store. “But I would never have allowed that to happen.
“I deeply apologize that Barry did that to him,” Schmidt said of Michael Ryan, the man who Baker mocked for his disability and then punched in the face without any seeming provocation. She said that afterwards she agreed to keep Baker’s whereabouts a secret from law enforce- ment because he was threatening to kill himself and “take me down with him” if he was apprehended.
“I just felt so trapped in the middle,” Schmidt, whose attorney, Thomas H. Ramsay of West Chester, said had broken off with Baker after being abused by him while they were together. “I felt so confused.”
As part of a plea agreement negotiated by Ramsay and the prosecution, Schmidt, 49, the mother of three from Georgetown, Del., was sentenced to two years’ probation on the misdemeanor charge of hindering apprehension. She will have to complete 200 hours of community service and be required to write letters of apology to the U.S. Marshal’s Service and the Chester County Sheriff’s Department, agencies whose fugitive task force hunted for Baker following his decision not to turn himself in on warrants in May and June.
As part of the plea, she is forbidden from having contact with Baker, who is facing a possible state prison sentence for the assault and flight.
Baker was captured June 5 hiding in the bathroom of a hotel room in Uwchlan, which Schmidt had rented under an assumed name and paid for in cash. Both Baker and Schmidt insist he was planning on turning himself in that day before marshals apprehended him.
Schmidt also will be supervised under a probation program for abused and traumatized women for her sentence on a 2016 driving under the influence convic- tion.
According to the facts of the case presented to Mahon — who is set to sentence Baker for the assault and flight later this month — by Assistant District Attorney Tanner Jacobs, Schmidt knew where Baker was during the period when police were looking for him, but concealed his whereabouts even as she was becoming friendly with those agents.
The events that brought Schmidt to court began May 10 outside a 7-Eleven in West Chester, where Baker, a 29-year-old landscaper with a record of petty thefts and other crimes, was standing with friends. A man later identified as Ryan drove up to the front, got out and walked into the store. As he did, Baker mimicked the way Ryan, who has cerebral palsy, walked.
When Ryan came out of the store, Baker again made fun of his walk. Ryan turned to speak to Baker, and when he did, Baker threw a punch at him, striking him in the face. Baker then walked away. Police were later able to identify him, and he was subsequently charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct.
The encounter, however, had been recorded by the 7-Eleven’s surveillance camera. West Chester police and the District Attorney’s Office released the tape to the public, and it gained almost instant notoriety on the Internet. Baker, who had been processed and released on bail pending a preliminary hearing, became a pariah. Warrants for violation of his probation on theft charges and failure to pay child support were issued.