HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Assault charges for two men were dismissed without prejudice in the Superior Court of Guam.
Mixed martial arts fighter Ricky Camp and his co-defendant, Joseph Christopher Mendiola, were scheduled to go to trial Tuesday in the Superior Court of Guam on charges related to two different assault allegations made last year.
However, during a motion hearing held Monday morning, just hours before jury selection was supposed to start, the Office of the Attorney General filed a motion to dismiss the charges against Camp and Mendiola without prejudice.
According to court documents, Camp was charged with aggravated assault as a third-degree felony and two counts of misdemeanor assault, while Mendiola was charged with assault as a misdemeanor. The charges stem from allegations that Camp assaulted a man on March 19, 2023, outside of King’s Restaurant in Tamuning, and another incident on Aug. 27, 2023, where Camp and Mendiola were accused of “jumping” a man outside Tumon bar Live house.
Prosecutor Kristine Borja wrote in her motion to dismiss of the indictment: “There has been a significant change in the state of the evidence that affects the ability to proceed in this matter at this time.”
Borja explained that the male victim of the assault at King’s Restaurant did not want to testify at trial. As for the incident at Live house, the male victim, according to Borja, was unable to identify whether Camp or Mendiola assaulted him “due to (the) effects of the incident.”
Additionally, another witness of the Live house incident was unable to identify “which party had initiated contact first.”
“A sole eyewitness that has come forward is not able to identify which party had initiated contact first, and the People will not be able to disprove an affirmative defense at this time. Additionally, the People have just received new information that requires continued investigation before the People can proceed,” Borja wrote in her motion submitted to the Superior Court of Guam on Monday.
Defense
On Tuesday, The Guam Daily Post confirmed with Camp’s attorney, Tyler Scott from the Alternate Public Defender, that the case was dismissed by the AG’s office.
Scott said despite the dismissal, he felt Camp would have been proven innocent had it gone to trial.
“While the government didn’t feel like they were going to be able to meet their burden to prove their case, we from the start knew that Mr. Camp had a very strong self-defense argument and feel that without a doubt, we would have proven innocence had the case gone to trial,” Scott said before discussing some of the reasons for the dismissal.
“There were issues just with the victim’s statement and certain witnesses contradicting what he had told the police that would have been brought to light at trial, so the government took all that into account and then decided to drop the case,” Scott added.
Complaint
According to court documents, Camp was in the parking lot of King’s Restaurant in Tamuning on March 19, 2023, when he allegedly approached and “berated” the male victim and his friend before using his right shoulder to press against the victim’s shoulder and punched the victim with an “uppercut” at the bottom of the man’s jaw.
When the man tried to get away and was backed against a car door, Camp then allegedly kicked the man’s midsection approximately three times.
In the Live house incident on Aug. 27, 2023, a male victim told Guam Police Department officers he was “jumped by Camp and possibly two other males.” The victim reported Camp allegedly told the man he wanted to fight him, despite reporting he had no reason to fight Camp.
“Sometime during this interaction, one unknown male ‘sucker-punched’ him, and the defendant punched him in a ‘one-two’ punch combination. Afterwards, (the victim) told officers that ‘as he was collapsing to the ground, a possible third unknown male struck him in the back of the head with (what) may have been a hard object,'” the complaint stated.
The man, as a result, became unconscious and police later observed during an injury check that the man was bleeding from his nose, mouth and left ear and had abrasions on his left knee, a small cut to his left eyebrow and bruising to his right eye.
“The report indicates that (the victim) was treated at the Guam Memorial Hospital and received five staples to the back of his head,” the complaint stated.
Ricky Mike Camp
Joseph Christopher Mendiola
