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The victim in a June 8 assault says prosecutors told him a Multnomah County grand jury voted today to issue criminal charges against the two right-wing extremists who attacked him.
Vancouver, Wash.-based right-wing brawler Tusitala "Tiny" Toese and Proud Boy Donovon Flippo were investigated for an alleged assault last June in which Toese, by his own admission, punched a man in the face.
A deputy district attorney presented the case against the two men to a grand jury this afternoon.
The hearing came one week after a WW story detailed the previously abandoned investigation, which had multiple witnesses and a victim willing to press charges.
Prosecutors had initially declined to bring charges against and asked the Portland police to do more investigating.
The victim, Tim Ledwith, and two witnesses who saw the alleged assault, including a bystander who called 9-1-1, testified in the grand jury hearing. Subpoenas shared with WW show that both Flippo and Toese face a charge of assault in the third degree.
Ledwith waited outside the courtroom this afternoon as the grand jury deliberated. After the vote, Deputy District Attorney Nathan Vasquez asked Ledwith to follow him up to the courthouse's 8th floor to discuss the case. Immediately after that conversation, Ledwith told WW Vasquez told him the grand jury voted to indict Toese and Flippo.
A spokesman for the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office says he cannot comment on the grand jury vote because it is secret. A formal indictment has not yet been filed with the court.
On June 8, Toese and two other men were cruising in a black pickup around northeast Portland when they crossed paths with Ledwith.
Toese and another passenger shouted "Go Trump," according to their police interviews. Ledwith, who had attended counter-protests demonstrating against Patriot Prayer in the past, shouted back at the truck.
Two men got out of the truck and Toese punched Ledwith in the face, according to records obtained by WW. (Toese told police Ledwith had spit at the truck, but other witnesses did not corroborate that claim.)
Ledwith reported the incident to police four days later.
Toese, who is a longtime member of the far-right men's group called the Proud Boys and Vancouver, Wash.-based Patriot Prayer, has been an outsized and vilified figure in Portland for two years. Recently, texts exchanged between a Portland police lieutenant and Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson showed the officer offering advice for how Toese could avoid being arrested on an active warrant.
Toese has been arrested three times and criminally cited in a fourth incident in Portland. Despite that record, he's never spent a night in a Multnomah County jail.
Toese has a long history of brawling with antifascist demonstrators in Portland. Sometimes, he throws punches at masked protesters who are eager to strike back.
Other times, he's been caught on camera striking protesters unprovoked, as in a Dec. 9, 2017, incident for which he pleaded guilty to a harassment charge. In that incident, Toese socked a black-clad counter-demonstrator who flipped him off.
The plea deal Toese agreed to for that incident required him to serve 12 months probation and perform 40 hours of community service. (Toese failed to follow the terms of his probation and on Feb. 11 a Multnomah County judge signed a warrant for his arrest for the probation violation.)