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But was it unprovoked or self-defense?
The jury trial of Cristian Murillo-Munoz, 25, continues today in Hackensack, following openings last week.
The 26-year old victim, a single father with a young daughter, said he went to Studio 4 in Fort Lee on Jan. 21, 2012 to “meet my girlfriend, have a drink, and drive home with her.”
As he walked into the club along a narrow corridor just before closing, he said, Murillo-Munoz was upon him.
He was struck in the head and the neck, he said, and his neck was pouring blood.
When he turned to see who’d done it, the victim testified, Murillo-Munoz “was being restrained by security.”
Murillo-Munoz, who is charged with aggravated assault, is expected to take the stand himself and contend that the victim came to Studio 4 intending to attack him, and that he acted in self-defense.
Four people who worked at the club identified Murillo-Munoz during testimony last week as having hit the victim, breaking a Corona bottle on top of his head, then cutting his neck under the ear.
But none said they actually saw Murillo-Munoz do it.
Nor is the incident itself on security video obtained by investigators.
Ed Gomez, a promoter at the troubled nightspot, and George Blumenschen, the floor manager, both testified that they heard breaking glass, turned and saw the victim grab his neck and fall to the floor. Murillo-Munoz was being restrained by security, they said.
Dana Denoble, the coatcheck girl, said she saw only the immediate aftermath.
The victim “was huddled over. He was not fighting back. He was trying to stop the bleeding,” she said. “Christian was standing over him.
“I screamed out that you have to put pressure on it,” she said. “ I walked out from behind the coat check, saw how much it was bleeding. I reached behind this wall, grabbed a first aid kit, put on gloves and put pressure on it.
“I had blood halfway up my forearm on both arms.”
Another club employee, Emanuel Rice, rushed to help.
Both said Rice placed his hands over Denoble’s for additional pressure on the victim’s neck because of the blood loss until EMTs arrived.
A large photograph of the cut showed a gash approximately five inches long, starting in front of the victim’s ear and going toward the back of his neck. At one spot, it was an inch and a half to two inches wide.
The victim testified that he and Murillo-Munoz stopped associating early in 2011. Although his current girlfriend previously dated the defendant for five to six years, they’d stopped when he started going out with her around March 2011.
The trial continues this morning in Superior Court Judge Patrick J. Roma’s Hackensack courtroom, when the emergency room doctor who treated the victim is scheduled to testify.
The defense case follows.
Studio 4, in a small warehouse building next to the Route 4 Doubletree Hotel, has changed hands several times over the years. It’s now closed.
STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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