| Corinne Heller 30. Mai 2015 – 09:28
Dustin Diamond, best known for playing Screech on Saved by the Bell, has been found not guilty of a felony after being accused of stabbing a man during a bar fight but was convicted of two misdemeanors and still faces the threat of a jail sentence.
Prosecutors accused the 38-year-old actor of stabbing a 25-year-old man, Casey Smet, at The Grand Avenue Saloon on Dec. 26 after his fiancée, Amanda Schutz, 27, got involved in an altercation with a woman who was allegedly harassing her and the actor. Diamond had pleaded not guilty to a felony charge of recklessly endangering safety and misdemeanor charges of carrying a concealed weapon and disorderly conduct with a dangerous weapon.
On Friday evening, a Wisconsin jury found him guilty of the felony and cleared him of the other offenses. Schutz was herself found guilty of misdemeanor disorderly conduct.
“We’re happy with the results, we think that justice has been done,” Madison TV station WISC-TV quoted Diamond’s lawyer, Thomas Alberti, as saying. “The jury did a good job.”
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Diamond used a whiteboard at times during his testimony. He said he tried to defend Schutz and took out his pocketknife, then put it away when he saw she was safe. Smet, whose knife wounds were non-threatening, had told police he didn’t realize he had been cut until after the incident.
Diamond said he also didn’t know Smet had been injured and that he “didn’t swing or thrust at anybody” with his knife.
“It was for display purposes only and it had the desired effect,” the actor testified. “I said, ‘Let go’ and they did, immediately.”
He said Schutz drove the two to their home, located about a mile away, and that’s when he got a closer look at her wounds.
“Her face was pouring blood,” the actor testified. “She was just going, ‘Oh my God, oh my God,’ and holding her face…and trying to drive with her free hand.”
Following the verdict, Diamond and Schutz hugged and walked out of the courtroom together.
A conviction of carrying a concealed weapon could lead to a maximum sentence of nine months in jail, while disorderly conduct with a dangerous weapon carries a maximum punishment of 90 days behind bars. Diamond and Schutz are scheduled to be sentenced on June 25.
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