Man sentenced over baseball bat assault Copyright by WAVY – All rights reserved Video
RALEIGH, N.C. (WAVY) — A man convicted of assaulting police while holding a baseball bat faces at least one more year behind bars after he was sentenced today.
Michael John Soto was convicted by a North Carolina courtroom jury after a year-long trial with jury deliberations stretching into a week.
Soto, 37, of Richmond, appeared in court wearing a red jail uniform with a black jail jail collar and white letters reading, “I agree to the prosecution’s request for at least 12 months.”
At trial Soto, a member of the Richmond, Virginia-based group Black-Shirts Motorcyclists????? ??? Against Police Violence, stood in the back with his hands over his face and walked down the aisle of the courthouse holding the weapon.
After Soto failed a test of his competency for an unarmed shooting, ?? ???trial testimony showed Soto swung the bat over a chair to point it at police officers, but failed to put the weapon back into his pocket. He was shot by one of the??? ??? ?? officers.
Soto was charged with assault causing great bodily injury for the March 2016 incident, but was acquitted of the second charge in the spring of 2016.