Corey Ausby, the 16-year-old Baltimore youth allegedly beaten by a former community watch member and his brother, testified in court April 25 that he did not want to press charges against the two.
“I don’t want to testify. I want all the charges to be dropped,” Ausby said in one of several outbursts, according to Baltimore CBS affiliate, WJZ-TV.
The teen was in tears for most of his testimony from the witness stand in the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse on Calvert Street in Downtown Baltimore.
“The whole time I didn’t want to go through this stuff. I felt lots of pressure with the whole situation. In my heart, I didn’t want to testify. I shouldn’t have even called police,” said Ausby. However, Ausby’s testimony, much of which was not clear or intelligible, was in fact ruled inadmissible by Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Pamela White, according to Baltimore NBC affiliate WBAL. White said Ausby was welcome to return to court if he chose to testify.
On November 19, 2010 the young man was walking on Fallstaff Road after leaving his grandmother’s apartment in the Fallstaff Manor Apartments complex. Supposedly en route to catch a bus and meet his mother for a doctor’s appointment, the teen refused to say why he never made it to the bus stop, according to North Baltimore Patch. Throughout the questioning by assistant state’s attorney Kevin Wiggins, Ausby mumbled his responses to questions if he decided to answer at all, preferring to remain silent at times.
Ausby’s testimony, which is sure to create major hurdles in the prosecution’s plan to move forward, did not go over well with the teen’s grandfather, who was ejected for motioning to the teen to speak louder.
White told the teen that he didn’t have a choice as to whether charges were brought against the two because that decision was left up to the State of Maryland.
According to charging documents, the sixteen-year-old received medical treatment for a broken wrist and a head laceration after allegedly being assaulted by brothers Avi, now 21, and Eliyahu Werdesheim, now 24.
The brothers have claimed that their actions were in self-defense, saying the teen became violent after being approached for trying car door handles and acting suspiciously in the Upper Park Heights neighborhood where the elder brother was a member of the Baltimore Shomrim, a Jewish community watch organization.
