A martial-arts instructor accused of trying to kill a man in a drunken brawl started the six-man scrum by slapping one of the man's friends, a defense witness told a Little Rock federal court jury on Tuesday.
Rodrigo Pineda Gomez, a jujitsu expert, is on trial over allegations that he delivered a potentially deadly neck twist, stomping and pummeling to an airman in a New Year's Eve 2016 floor-clearing free-for-all at a restaurant in Japan.
Charged with attempted voluntary manslaughter, Gomez, 44, is also accused of resisting arrest and lying to investigators about what happened during the fight.
His attorneys, Molly Sullivan and Blake Byrd, say Gomez did what he had to do to protect his wife, daughter and son from the men's assaults. The day's proceedings ended before the defense had decided whether Gomez would testify today. The trial resumes at 9 a.m. before U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr.
On Tuesday afternoon, defense witness Andrew Gullickson described how he told the police who broke up the battle that it all began when one of the airman's buddies lunged aggressively at a "heavily heavily intoxicated" Gomez, who responded with a self-protecting punch.
The entire episode was recorded on the restaurant's security camera, which has been played repeatedly for jurors.
Gullickson had to recant his initial account when confronted by federal prosecutor Frank Rangoussis, who pressed him into an almost frame-by-frame review of the footage.
Under cross-examination by Rangoussis, a Department of Justice lawyer brought to Little Rock to try the case, Gullickson admitted that he had assumed Gomez had lashed out because he had been physically provoked.
Gullickson, a jujitsu enthusiast and Gomez's friend, said that what he thought had been an angry lunge at Gomez was actually the man's reaction to being slapped from behind by Gomez.
What kind of slap was in dispute. Gullickson said Gomez had slapped the man's cap, while Rangoussis said Gomez had slapped the man's head.
Gullickson said he had missed seeing the slap, even though he was standing next to Gomez, because he had looked away at that moment toward the woman who was with him that night, concerned for her reaction to the friction between the men.
"I did not see who threw the first swing," Gullickson testified. "I heard the slap connect."
Gomez's punching of Airman Broderick Richmond set off a brief skirmish, which pitted Gomez and his son against Richmond and his friends. The six then appeared to work out their differences and settle down, even exchange hugs.
"Bro-ing it out," Gullickson, a naval petty officer from Green Bay, Wis., told jurors.
But the brouhaha rekindled a few minutes later when Gomez's wife and daughter arrived, and one of the four other men threatened the women and one of them shoved the wife, Gullickson told jurors.
An extended melee followed, during which Gomez's son, also a jujitsu coach, and Airman Souleyman Dia, the subject of Gomez's neck twist, grappled on the restaurant floor.
Gullickson told jurors that the neck move was a legitimate defensive jujitsu tactic.
Gomez's son, Miguel Gomez, 21, pleaded guilty to a federal assault charge last week to avoid trial in exchange for a resisting-arrest count being dropped.
The fight occurred at Cafe Mokuteki on the U.S. Air Force Base in Misawa, Japan. But it's being re-enacted this week for a federal jury in Little Rock to decide whether Rodrigo Gomez, caught up in the emotion of the fight, was trying to kill Dia, as authorities say, or protect his wife, daughter and son, as Gomez told federal investigators.
The case is being tried in Little Rock because Gomez's wife is an Air Force major, and Little Rock was the family of five's last stateside station before Eloise Gomez was transferred to Japan. They now live in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Metro on 04/24/2019