MIDDLEBURY — A New Haven man on Monday pleaded innocent in Addison County Superior Court’s Criminal Division to charges of aggravated assault and simple assault stemming from a Saturday knife-wielding incident at a Plank Road, Ferrisburgh, address, just before 6 p.m.
Landon Urban, 29, listed by court documents as having a Halpin Road, New Haven, address, was ordered held without bail and returned to the Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility. Urban had been held there after the Saturday incident for lack of $100,000 bail.
He faces up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine for allegedly charging a knot of people with a knife on Saturday, the act that drew the felony aggravated assault count. Urban, who police claimed was drunk at the time of his arrest, also could be sentenced for up to one year and $1,000 for allegedly punching a woman three times during the incident, thus committing misdemeanor simple assault.
Urban was arrested in Vergennes on Saturday evening after a citizen alerted Vergennes police that four people in a vehicle driving into the city were fighting, according to court documents. Vergennes police on Monday said they found the vehicle at Settlers Park, next to Otter Creek, and held the occupants, including Urban, at the scene until Vermont State Police arrived and arrested Urban.
According to court officials, Urban’s next court appearance, a weight of evidence hearing, will probably occur next week, after a new attorney is appointed to represent him. Officials said the attorney who represented him on Monday, James Gratton, had to step aside due to a conflict of interest related to witnesses in the case. The weight of evidence hearing will help determine whether Urban is eligible for bail.
According to the state police affidavit filed with the court, troopers were called to the scene off Plank Road to deal with a report of a drunken man who had allegedly been brandishing a knife at a mud bog event (a mud bog is a competition in which trucks drive as far as they can through a pit of mud).
According to one witness, a dispute broke out when a group of four adults, including Urban, were asked to leave the event. The witness said “there was a lot of pushing and shoving going on,” but that he “was able to convince the four people to get into their car and leave.”
But the car was caught in a line of traffic leaving the event, and according to witnesses Urban got back out of the car with a knife and began making threats. One said he “threatened her and many others” and “she felt as if her life and others were in danger,” according to the affidavit. The first witness said he was again able to convince Urban to leave.
A second witness stated that Urban and his companions had been asked to leave the event because a fight had broken out between Urban and another individual, according to the affidavit. That witness said Urban came after him with a knife when he got out of the car, and he “felt threatened for his life.” The witness said he eventually “subdued him (Urban) with help from the crowd,” according to the court documents.
A woman who tried to speak to Urban during the knife incident said she saw Urban with the knife, but “fist fighting” with a crowd member. She said she tried to stop the fight and was first punched in her face and then twice in her left kidney, according to VSP’s account. She was taken to Porter Hospital for treatment.
VSP allege that after his arrest in Vergennes, Urban’s blood-alcohol content tested at 0.166, just over twice the legal limit for driving. He was not driving the car, however, police determined.