A decorated Green Beret was the victim of a vicious assault by a Miami man and his brother, which led to the soldier losing his life, according to arrest-warrant affidavits filed today in Steamboat Springs.
According to multiple witnesses, Sgt. 1st Class Richard Lopez was crossing a street in Steamboat Springs on New Year’s Day when Eduardo “Eddie” Capote Jr., 27, took a running start at Lopez and hit him with a “sucker” punch that knocked Lopez cold.
The witnesses said that as he lay unconscious and defenseless on the ground, Lopez was repeatedly kicked and punched.
When two of Lopez’s friends — brothers Timothy and Michael Mottlau — attempted to cover Lopez’s body with their own, they were repeatedly kicked and punched by Capote and his brother, David, 23, according to the witnesses.
The assault was partially captured via a cellphone video.
The video’s audio recorded a male voice yelling “boom boom” each time a punch was thrown, according to Steamboat Springs Detective David Kleiber, who wrote the arrest-warrant affidavits.
In the background, a woman is heard screaming, “David stop it stop it. David stop it!”
The incident started at the Tap House Sports Grill after Michael Mottlau selected one of his favorite Jimmy Buffett songs, “Margaritaville,” on the bar’s jukebox.
Witnesses said that Eddie Capote began heckling Michael Mottlau about the song choice, and Capote challenged the trio to a fight in an alley outside the bar. But the Capote brothers’ two female companions and the bar staff talked the five men out of fighting.
The Capote party of four then left the bar after paying their tab, and Lopez and the Mottlaus left a short time later after finishing their drinks.
It was outside, about a block away, said witnesses, that Eddie and David Capote ambushed Lopez and the Mottlaus as they crossed the street.
One of numerous independent witnesses said that as Lopez and his two friends crossed the street, a man “charged from the corner into the middle of the street and came with flying fists” and hit Lopez, who fell to the ground.
Another witness said Lopez was halfway across the street when a man hit Lopez in the face with a “running good punch.”
That witness described the punch as a “sucker punch” and told investigators that it was “so unnecessary for someone to run up and knock some guy over for no reason at all.”
Lopez died a couple of days later from severe head trauma, including a fractured skull.
According to family members, Lopez, of Fayetteville, N.C., was a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lopez, 37, was shot multiple times in Afghanistan, receiving serious wounds to his bladder and a leg.
Steamboat Springs District Attorney Elizabeth Oldham said that Eddie Capote has been charged with one count of felony second-degree assault on Lopez. He also is charged with two counts of third-degree assault against the Mottlaus, whom Lopez was visiting over the holidays in Steamboat Springs.
He has been released on a $10,000 bond.
David Capote, also of Miami, was charged with two counts of third-degree assault on the Mottlau brothers. He is out on a $1,500 bond.
Oldham said that if convicted of second-degree assault, Eddie Capote could face a sentence of 5 to 16 years in prison. Conviction of third-degree assault, a Class 1 misdemeanor, carries a maximum sentence of two years in county jail.
Their next court date is May 20.
The district attorney said that the second-degree-assault charge carries a more severe penalty than a charge of manslaughter. That is why she decided on the assault charge.
The Florida brothers claimed that they were acting in self-defense during the brawl.
Their lawyer, Charles Feldmann, said the men traveled to Steamboat Springs during the New Year’s holidays on a family ski vacation.
The two brothers claimed that bar patrons “were beginning to take and place bets on the brewing altercation with three physically imposing and highly trained members” of the U.S. military. Feldmann claimed that outside the front entrance of the Tap House just after midnight, the two brothers were cornered and attacked by the three military men, who they said were looking for a fight.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
