Two men accused of participating in a violent assault at the Dave Matthews Band concert at SPAC in June, both pleaded guilty to second-degree assault on Friday, March 26, according to Saratoga County District Attorney James A. Murphy.
Michael Lester, 18, and Kenyn Shattuck, 17, both of Greenfield Center will each face three years in state prison after pleading guilty to beating a fellow concert attendee. According to Murphy, Lester and Shattuck were harassing a woman with the male victim, who they didn’t know. The victim was severely beaten, had a perforated ear drum, a broken nose and chipped teeth as a result of the assault; he has since made a full recovery.
The men and women of the New York State Park Police did an outstanding job investigating an assault at a concert attended by tens of thousands of people. The concert attendees were generally orderly and the NYSPP did a good job with monitoring, crowd flow, traffic, parking lots, fan safety and the general safeguarding of all attendees in the New York State Park. I am pleased that despite the thousands of people in attendance and the usual concerns and issues that go along with a large crowd at the Dave Mathews Band, the police triaged the issues, focused on this particular assault and found witnesses who were in some cases somewhat reluctant to get involved in a criminal investigation. Most important, they identified the assailants and charged them with violent felony assaults, said Murphy in a statement.
Murphy said while other people may have been involved in the assault as well, there was insufficient proof to charge anyone else with criminal conduct. Shattuck and Lester also face charges stemming from a separate incident in December when they and four others broke into the Wilton home of their drug dealer. They face charges of first-degree burglary, a violent felony offense. That case is still pending in Wilton Town Court.
Sentencing in the beating is scheduled for May 21.
“
