Groton man pleads guilty to screwdriver stabbing
A Groton man pleaded guilty Tuesday to stabbing his cousin in the neck and chest during a drunken brawl in September 2015.
Richard Sawyer IV, 33, will be sentenced to four years in prison followed by five years probation on Sept. 8.
He pleaded guilty to first-degree assault under a plea deal that Judge Hillary B. Strackbein indicated she would accept after supervising several months of pretrial negotiations between prosecutor Stephen M. Carney and defense attorney Sebastian O. Desantis.
Sawyer, who has been incarcerated since the incident, pleaded guilty under the Alford Doctrine, an indication that he does not agree with the state's version of the crime but does not want to risk a harsher sentence if convicted at trial.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit prepared by Groton City police Detective Paul Ruddy, Richard Sawyer called 911 at 2:15 a.m. to report that his cousin, 25-year-old Noah Sawyer, had fallen in the woods and had a small puncture wound to the upper left side of his rib cage and a scratch wound extending from the left side of his neck to the left side of his chin.
The cousins were at a Poquonnock Road rooming house with another man, Ronald Fillmore, 45, and all three were "severely intoxicated," according to the affidavit.
The victim was treated at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital, where personnel told police the puncture wound to Noah Sawyer's chest, which caused one of his lungs to collapse, was not consistent with a fall and appeared to have been made by a screwdriver.
Ruddy examined a puncture hole in Noah Sawyer's shirt and found a cross symbol that appeared to have been created by a Phillips head screwdriver.
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