An Erie man charged with two others in an October 2023 attack that seriously injured another man in the city was sentenced on Nov. 19 to a state prison term after pleading no-contest to a felony aggravated assault charge.
Erie County Judge John J. Mead followed a sentencing recommendation reached by lawyers in the case in sentencing 35-year-old Perry C. Ames to 3 1/2 to seven years in prison on the no-contest plea he entered in February.
Ames was one of three people charged by the Erie Bureau of Police in the Oct. 18, 2023, attack. Investigators said officers were called to a West 21st Street residence to investigate a reported domestic disturbance but found no one there. But about 15 minutes later, according to police, a crew from EmergyCare found a man stumbling in the 2200 block of Myrtle Street. The man had been eviscerated, authorities reported at the time.
An investigation into the incident led police to charge Ames, Kristan L. Kupniewski and Noah A. Kupniewski with offenses including attempted homicide. The attempted homicide counts were dropped at the preliminary hearings.
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Kristan Kupniewski, 39, pleaded guilty in February to a misdemeanor count of theft and was sentenced to a year of probation, according to court records. Noah Kupniewski, 22, pleaded guilty in August to misdemeanor counts of simple assault and recklessly endangering and was sentenced to four years of probation, court records show.
Assistant Erie County Public Defender Tyler Lindquist said at Ames’s sentencing Nov. 19 that his client’s actions that day were out of character, noting in part Ames’s lack of a notable criminal record.
Ames, in his comments to the court, said he had no clue what was going on that day leading up to the incident, but said he was deeply and sincerely sorry for what happened to the man.
The victim in the case “was essentially gutted like fish,” Assistant District Attorney Tayler Moses told Mead, adding that not for the EmergyCare crew that found the man he probably would have died.
Contact Tim Hahn at thahn@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie man sentenced to state prison in 2023 attack on other man