Eric S. Creamer left Schuylkill County Court a free man on Tuesday after a jury found him not guilty of 10 charges resulting from an alleged incident on Memorial Day 2015 in Mahanoy City.
Creamer, 25, of Pottsville, thanked the jury of eight men and four women after they found him not guilty of three counts of simple assault, two of terroristic threats and one each of aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation, possessing instrument of crime possession of a weapon and disorderly conduct.
Jurors deliberated less than an hour before reaching their verdict, which ended Creamer’s one-day trial over which Judge Charles M. Miller presided.
Mahanoy City police had charged Creamer with waving an air pistol that resembled a weapon, and holding a knife to a woman’s throat, about 1:45 p.m. May 25, 2015, in the 100 block of East Mahanoy Avenue.
“He had a gun in his hand and was pointing it toward me,” Enrique Santiago, Philadelphia, testified about Creamer. “I was scared. I thought he was going to shoot me.”
Enrique Santiago’s wife, Alicia Santiago, also identified Creamer as the man who put a knife to her throat and then spat blood in her face.
“That was disgusting,” she said. “I did fear for my life.”
“What part of the knife did you feel on your neck?” Assistant District Attorney Debra A. Smith asked her.
“The blade,” she answered. “I thought he was going to kill me.”
When cross-examined by Assistant Public Defender Kent D. Watkins, Creamer’s lawyer, Alicia Santiago testified she thought Creamer was on drugs. She also said she and other family members came to Creamer’s house separately.
Timothy A. Sheeler testified he saw Creamer running and screaming in the street after the borough’s Memorial Day parade had ended.
Also testifying for the prosecution were John P. Simon, who said Creamer started a fight and used an ethnic slur against him and other people, and Janelle M. McGowan, who said Creamer got in a fight, used another ethnic slur and released two dogs onto the street.
“It was just chaos,” McGowan said of the situation. “It all happened so fast. It was very dramatic.”
In her closing argument, Smith said the witnesses’ testimony, when viewed together, painted a clear picture of what occurred.
“There are certain things that stick out in one person’s mind that don’t stick out in another,” she said.
Creamer started the incident, pulled out a gun and was guilty of all charges, Smith said.
However, jurors accepted Watkins’ arguments that almost all the witnesses against his client were family members taking the law into their own hands, no independent people testified about anything essential in the case and that the prosecution witnesses provoked the incident by heading toward the defendant’s house.
“There’s bad blood here against Mr. Creamer,” Watkins said. “There was no reason to go over there (to Creamer’s house). He’s not a big, hulking tough guy.”
Defendant
Name: Eric S. Creamer
Age: 25
Residence: Pottsville, formerly of Mahanoy City
Verdict: Not guilty of three counts of simple assault, two of terroristic threats and one each of aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation, possessing instrument of crime possession of a weapon and disorderly conduct