Former mixed martial arts fighter Joseph \u201cBaby Joe\u201d Taimanglo II was acquitted Friday after a three-day trial in which prosecutors argued that repeated witness identifications and medical records tied him to the violent assault of a woman, while his defense argued that investigators failed to adequately establish his identity or prove injuries severe enough to support aggravated assault.<\/p>\n
Taimanglo, 42, faced two counts of aggravated assault, both third-degree felonies, stemming from a June 28, 2025 incident at a family compound.<\/p>\n
One of the charges, involving a male victim, was later dismissed.<\/p>\n
\u201cJoe is relieved and maintains he was not the person who randomly showed up and assaulted the victims. He was confused when he got arrested 5 months after the incident that alleged he was the assailant,\u201d defense attorney Peter Santos told the Pacific Daily News after the verdict. \u201cWe thank the jury for paying attention and performing their duty.\u201d<\/p>\n
During closing arguments Thursday, prosecutor John David Griffin told jurors the case centered on whether they believed Taimanglo was the person who assaulted the woman.<\/p>\n
Griffin said jurors heard testimony and reviewed medical records documenting the injuries. He argued the evidence supported the remaining aggravated assault charge against Taimanglo.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we have is a petite woman getting punched by somebody that’s a professional fighter,\u201d Griffin told jurors, describing her as \u201cunder five feet tall\u201d and Taimanglo as a trained fighter who has \u201cfought many people.\u201d<\/p>\n
He argued that when \u201can able-bodied man who has been trained as a professional fighter. Repeatedly punches and kicks a 4\u2019 11 woman,\u201d jurors could find serious bodily injury through \u201csevere or intense physical pain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Griffin said the woman testified that she was \u201cassaulted, punched in the head four times, kicked in the chest, ribs, and back,\u201d and that she identified Taimanglo as the attacker.<\/p>\n
Griffin also told jurors that he is a fan of mixed martial arts and has witnessed the physical consequences of the sport, including facial injuries, one punch knockouts and broken legs.<\/p>\n
He said trained fighters understand the physical difference between themselves and people without similar training.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can cause damage. It can cause permanent disfigurement. It can cause death,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said a police officer testified that he interviewed the woman and observed visible injuries and recorded her identification of Taimanglo.<\/p>\n
Another woman, Griffin said, \u201cdidn’t see the actual assault,\u201d but \u201cobserved the defendant on the property that same day prior to\u201d the incident. He said she later encountered the victim after the assault, when she was bleeding and identified Taimanglo.<\/p>\n
Griffin acknowledged that Taimanglo has a brother who resembles him but argued that witnesses repeatedly identified Taimanglo by name and appearance as the person who was at the property.<\/p>\n
Griffin repeatedly cautioned jurors to separate the evidence presented in court from the attorneys’ arguments.<\/p>\n
He told them to carefully review the roughly 45 minutes of court instructions in the jury room and \u201cparse the words out carefully,\u201d arguing that \u201cthere can be no question that the defendant recklessly intended or attempted to cause severe, intense pain or suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow else can you describe what happened to that woman that got up on the stand and told you what happened to her?\u201d Griffin asked.<\/p>\n
Near the end of his closing, Griffin acknowledged that defense attorney Peter Santos would raise other issues but argued the evidence still pointed directly to Taimanglo.<\/p>\n
Griffin ended his argument by predicting that jurors would return a guilty verdict after reviewing the evidence and court instructions.<\/p>\n
‘Tremendous doubt’<\/p>\n
The defense countered that the prosecution failed to establish the identity of the attacker and failed to prove the injuries met the legal threshold for aggravated assault.<\/p>\n
Attorney Peter Santos told jurors the government\u2019s case collapsed on those two central issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s not just reasonable doubt. There\u2019s tremendous doubt, so I ask you to return the only moral result, which is not guilty,\u201d Santos said.<\/p>\n
Santos said prosecutors \u201cprematurely stopped the investigation\u201d and failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Taimanglo was the man who assaulted the victims.<\/p>\n
He told jurors there was no dispute that two people were assaulted or that injuries were observed by fire personnel, Guam Regional Medical City staff and others at the compound. The dispute, he said, was whether Taimanglo was responsible.<\/p>\n
Santos argued that other people on Guam could resemble Taimanglo, including his brother, and said mistaken identification is a major factor in wrongful convictions.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you want to know what the number one reason why innocent people are sitting in jail? Mistaken identity,\u201d Santos said. \u201cThat\u2019s the number one reason people are sitting in jail. Innocent people are sitting in jail because of mistaken identity.\u201d<\/p>\n
He framed the case as a choice between competing versions of events.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf story A is believable, which yes, I admit it\u2019s believable, it\u2019s possible, but if you have story B that could also be possible, then that by definition is reasonable doubt because it could either have been story A or story B,\u201d he told jurors. \u201cStory A being that Baby Joe went over there and put a beat down on these two people. Story B being, it could have been somebody else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Santos also challenged the timing of Taimanglo\u2019s arrest, saying police waited five months after the June 28 incident to arrest him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best course of action for the police to have done is to go get him that same day, and ask him,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s why you have to investigate things when it\u2019s fresh. That\u2019s why you have to gather all the information when it\u2019s fresh.\u201d<\/p>\n
Santos said that if police had questioned Taimanglo on June 28, they might have been able to establish an alibi or determine whether he could have been involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo we have positive identification in this case? That\u2019s what is the linchpin in this case,\u201d Santos said.<\/p>\n
Santos separately attacked the aggravated assault charge, arguing that even if jurors believed Taimanglo was the attacker, the documented injuries did not meet the legal definition of serious bodily injury.<\/p>\n
He said the charge turns on the severity of the injuries rather than the physical difference between Taimanglo and Santos.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not what aggravated assault is about. It\u2019s not about disproportionality. It\u2019s about the severity of the injuries, right?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Santos reminded jurors that the victim testified she never lost consciousness and pointed to her medical records.<\/p>\n
He focused on a pain assessment in which Santos rated her pain at four out of 10.<\/p>\n
Santos returned to the government\u2019s burden of proof in his closing argument, telling jurors that prosecutors had to establish the allegations against Taimanglo beyond a reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n
He argued that investigators could make mistakes or stop before answering critical questions and maintained that the investigation in Taimanglo\u2019s case did exactly that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former mixed martial arts fighter Joseph \u201cBaby Joe\u201d Taimanglo II was acquitted Friday after a three-day trial in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":887917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,322,785,44,85],"class_list":["post-887916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-local","tag-mma","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=887916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/887917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=887916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=887916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=887916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}