Boulder police arrested a man who had denied involvement in the beating of a student after matching his DNA to saliva found on the victim.
Albert Kennedy III, 22, turned himself in Tuesday after he was informed there was a warrant for his arrest for perjury. He was released after posting $5,000 bail.
At a court hearing last May, Kennedy testified that he was across the street when Evan Couri, 23, was savagely beaten.
Couri was studying economics at the University of Colorado in December 2006 when he and some friends got into a fight with another group of men after leaving a bar. “There was a verbal dispute at the Walrus Bar,” said Boulder police spokeswoman Sarah Huntley.
Early the following morning, one of the men involved in the altercation called Couri’s friend and challenged him to settle the dispute “man to man,” said Couri’s father, Ron.
Couri and his friends went to an apartment complex where they were met by a large group of men, some of them wielding pool cues, bats and rocks, on the street outside the complex, Ron Couri said.
The New Jersey resident was knocked down, then kicked and spat upon. “After the original assault, he was hospitalized here with a serious head injury,” Huntley said.
Couri left the hospital and returned home for the holidays, but he suffered two strokes and was treated for a brain injury at a New York hospital.
At a preliminary hearing for another participant, Kennedy testified that he was across the street when the fight broke out and wasn’t involved in the brawl.
But DNA taken from spit left on Couri matched Kennedy’s.
Couri is still undergoing rehabilitation for his injuries and has had five procedures on his brain, his father said. “He can move his arm above his head, he has been recertified to drive, but he is off-balance and, cognitively, still has short-term memory loss. Hopefully, with enough work, we can get him back in school, but it is going to be a while, all because of this last evening of school and this stupid situation.”
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
