Couple sentenced for beating outside Mason middle-school volleyball match
Man gets 2 years, woman gets 2 days for Sept. 2019 incident.
A Cincinnati man was sentenced to two years in prison and his girlfriend to two days in jail for their parts in an assault on a Warren County man outside a Mason middle-school volleyball match in September 2019 that drew widespread attention.
Judge Robert Peeler ordered Gerald Gertz Jr., now 39, held for two to three years in prison for felonious assault, but said Gertz would likely be freed in less than two years, due state sentencing laws.
Peeler then sentenced Sarah Hatfield, now 39, also of Cincinnati, to two days in jail for her part in the beating of Raymond Phipps, now 44, of Clearcreek Twp., after his daughter’s game at St. Susanna School in Mason on Sept. 27, 2019.
Hatfield remains free, because she gets credit for having already
spent two days in jail while awaiting trial.
Peeler also ordered $35,244 in restitution for medical bills. Peeler said a civil lawsuit still pending in Warren County Common Pleas Court can better determine the full extent of restitution.
“This is the kind of case that just kind of makes you sick to your stomach,” Peeler said before sentencing Gertz and Hatfield, who were initially charged with misdemeanors.
The charges were increased after prosecutors were advised of the severity of Phipps’ injuries. Photos showed his badly bruised face.
Phipps testified on more than $60,000 in medical expenses he claimed to have incurred after his employee health insurance was cut to help with injuries including a traumatic brain injury, a broken eye socket and a thumb separated from hand bones.
The defense lawyers challenged Phipps’ claims, including that Hatfield helped Gertz in the assault.
Phipps said he was in a verbal argument with another parent, later determined to be Hatfield, at the girls middle-school volleyball game and left. He said he was attacked from behind while on the phone.
On Thursday, Peeler and prosecutors, but not Phipps, determined Phipps gestured obscenely toward Gertz and Hatfield before leaving the gym. Phipps’ daughter, 11 at the time, testified to being the first to find her father after the assault.
In August, Phipps and his wife sued Gertz and Hatfield in the civil lawsuit pending in Warren County Common Pleas Court.
The sentences were ordered Thursday after more than two hours of court hearings on restitution and to hear statements from the victims, defendants, their families and supporters.
Hatfield, who was found guilty of misdemeanor assault after entering an Alford plea, declined to make a statement Thursday.
Gertz apologized to the Phippses and his family.
Contact this reporter at 513-490-6140 or email larry.budd@coxinc.com.