Charges against a Bradford man accused of a hatchet assault were bound to McKean County Court at a preliminary hearing Wednesday before District Judge Dominic Cercone.
Paul M. Travis III, 32, of 21 Park St., upper apt., is charged with aggravated assault-circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life, a first-degree felony; simple assault, a second-degree misdemeanor; and summary harassment. An additional charge was added, too: aggravated assault-causes bodily injury with a deadly weapon, a second-degree felony.
The criminal complaint states that on April 8, the alleged victim, Jonathan Davis, was moving out of the Park Street apartment where Travis lived with his family. Davis was there collecting belongings at the time of the alleged assault, court records stated.
Travis entered the bedroom Davis was in and started arguing with him over a Vizio television set; Davis told Travis he’d be taking the TV, as he was moving out, the complaint stated.
While Davis was sitting on the floor gathering clothes, Travis allegedly struck him multiple times in the head; When Davis tried to turn and defend himself, he saw Travis holding what he said was a hatchet. Travis struck him again multiple times with the tool, “causing severe lacerations and contusions to the head, neck, back and torso area of Davis,” the complaint stated.
Davis blacked out during the assault and remembers waking up to see Travis’s stepfather trying to intervene to help Davis get out of the house and to the hospital.
The treatment Davis received at the hospital included two staples to his head where he was cut with the hatchet, court records stated.
The complaint indicated that while an officer was talking to Davis at Bradford Regional Medical Center, Bradford police received an additional call at 21 Park St. for a second active domestic in which Travis was the alleged actor. Officers responding to the second call took Travis into custody for the alleged assault on Davis.
Travis’s stepfather told police that Travis may have been under the influence of drugs during the altercation with Davis, according to court records.
Travis was out on bail for a pending assault case at the time the alleged hatchet assault occurred.
Travis is now in McKean County Jail in lieu of $75,000 bail.
