"He starts choking me," the woman, Megan Saunders, testified yesterday as she put both of her hands to her neck in demonstration. "He slams my head" against the roof of the taxi van.
"He continues to strangle me," Saunders, 32, said. "I'm like, 'Oh my God, I'm going to die in broad daylight.' "
Saunders said that Blount's "bulging" eyes looked "evil."
Common Pleas Judge Frank Palumbo reinstated the aggravated-assault charge against Blount, 49, at yesterday's hearing.
Blount, president of the Taxi Workers Alliance of Pennsylvania, has opposed credit-card payments for taxi rides for many reasons, including that drivers lose 5 percent of each fare to fees.
He now faces trial in Common Pleas Court on the felony aggravated-assault charge as well as misdemeanor charges of simple assault, unlawful restraint and related offenses.
At a preliminary hearing in May, Municipal Judge Jacquelyn Frazier-Lyde dismissed the aggravated-assault charge, but held Blount on the other charges. Prosecutors then refiled the aggravated-assault criminal complaint.
Saunders testified that about 6 p.m. March 6 she was at Philadelphia International Airport, having returned from a business trip. At the taxi stand, she was assigned Blount's taxi minivan.
Blount drove her to her destination of Rodman Street near 6th, Society Hill. Saunders said that she then told him that she needed to pay with a credit card.
"He said his machine was broken," Saunders said. "It didn't look broken."
She said Blount then said, "Let me take you to an ATM," which she didn't want to do. He then electronically opened the back-passenger door for her, she said.
"I guess you got yourself a free ride," Saunders quoted Blount as saying as he stood outside her door.
Saunders said she was confused by his comment, and as she was about to step out of the back seat behind the driver's side of the cab, he started choking her.
Blount then slammed the upper back part of her head against the outside roof of the van, she said, then threw her upper body back into the van, so that her head landed on the passenger side of the back seat.
Throughout the ordeal, which lasted about two minutes, Blount continued choking her, she said.
"What were you thinking?" Assistant District Attorney Kathleen Shields asked.
"That he was going to kill me," Saunders said.
Saunders fought back by kicking Blount "in his fat stomach," she testified. She then tried punching him, but at that moment, he released his hands from her neck, she said.
She then jumped out of the cab and walked toward the back, where she tried to remember his license-plate number.
Saunders said she yelled: "You can't do this to somebody!" and told Blount she would call police.
"He was saying very arrogantly, 'I don't give a f--- who you call,'" as he slowly drove away, she said.
Saunders said she sustained a migraine and an injury to her right-cheekbone area from the attack, and that she couldn't eat solid foods for a while.
Blount's attorney, Paul Messing, argued that this was not an aggravated-assault case, contending that there was no serious bodily injury or attempt to cause such injury.
Shields argued that choking someone for two minutes is an attempt at serious bodily injury.
The judge held Blount for trial on the charge, noting that at the preliminary-hearing level, the commonwealth is entitled to have the testimony viewed in its favor.
After the hearing, Saunders declined comment.
Blount, who is out on bail, and his attorney did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Blount is still working as a taxi driver, Philadelphia Parking Authority spokeswoman Linda Miller said later. She said that a judge at the Taxicab & Limousine Division allowed him to continue working as long as he checked in daily with the Enforcement Department. *
1 comment:
Mr. Ron Blount was found NOT GUILTY on thursday, October 15,2009. It took a Commonwealth jury less than 30 minutes to pick a foreman and deliver the verdict. The prosecution key witness, Megan Saunders was impeached several times on the stand. She was impeached on saying that the driver did not have a social security card. That people was walking around in plain view of the incident, and that she had injuries. A Philadelphia Police detective and patrolman both testified that she had no injuries and that she refuse to go the hospital.
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