Mario Riera-Arias faces possible life sentence in alleged baseball bat attack on ex-wife's boyfriend in Brooklyn Park
MINNEAPOLIS — A Fridley man is accused of brutally beating his ex-wife's boyfriend last week in Brooklyn Park, causing the man to be placed into a medically induced coma.
Mario Ricardo Riera-Arias, 32, was charged Wednesday by the Hennepin County Attorney's Office with first-degree premeditated murder and first-degree assault in connection to the attack early Saturday morning.
Court documents state Brooklyn Park police were dispatched at about 3 a.m. to Girard Court North after a woman called 911 to report her son had been beaten by a man armed with a baseball bat.
Officers at the scene found the victim unresponsive on the ground, covered in blood and with an "extremely swollen" face, court documents state.
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The victim was rushed to North Memorial Health where he was diagnosed with multiple skull and facial fractures and ruptured testicles, according to the criminal complaint.
As of Thursday, the victim is still in critical condition.
The victim's mother told police her son left to go get food in Blaine at about 1:30 a.m., and she heard his car pull up at about 3 a.m. She and her boyfriend then heard "what sounded like metal being hit against something," court documents state.
Her boyfriend opened the garage door and saw a man beating the victim with a bat. The boyfriend then ran after the attacker, who fled into his vehicle and drove off, the complaint states. The boyfriend got into his vehicle to chase the attacker, but he was unable to catch up to him.
The boyfriend told investigators the attacker was driving a red sedan with a black hood, which was the same vehicle the victim's mother saw parked outside their home the previous weekend.
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Security cameras in the neighborhood captured the entire attack, court documents state, with footage showing the victim arriving home, then glancing at his phone on his front stoop. A man is then seen running through the yard toward the victim with a bat. As the victim opens the front door, the attacker strikes him in the back of the head.
After delivering a second blow, the victim falls to the ground. The attacker then proceeds to strike about 45 more blows to the victim's head, each time "raising the bat up in the air … and swinging with full force," according to the complaint. About a minute later, the attacker is seen fleeing the yard.
Court documents state the victim's girlfriend later spoke with investigators and said she had been dating him for several months. She said she was separated from her husband, Riera-Arias, and was pursuing a divorce. She positively identified the attacker in surveillance footage as Riera-Arias and confirmed he drove a red sedan with a black hood.
The woman also told investigators the victim had visited her that early morning, leaving her residence about 10 minutes before the attack, the complaint states.
Another man who spoke with investigators said he missed a call from Riera-Arias just moments after the attack but then spoke with him about 90 minutes later. The criminal complaint states Riera-Arias told the man "he had gotten into a fight and the other guy was in critical condition." The man also told investigators Riera-Arias kept "a green metal baseball bat" in his sedan.
One of Riera-Arias' co-workers later told police the defendant confided in him hours after the attack, saying "he had jumped a guy last night," according to court documents.
Riera-Arias is being held in the Hennepin County Jail. His bail was set Wednesday at $1 million. He faces 40 years to life in prison if convicted.
