A vicious attack on an elderly man posted to social media led to the appearance of a St. Thomas man in Superior Court. Detectives working with the Virgin Islands Police Department said it took close to two weeks to locate the victim, described as a 69-year-old military vet.
It also took a few days to locate defendant, Richard Lazarus, police said in a report filed in Superior Court. Court documents also said the social media post came to authorities’ attention April 10. That video recording showed a male and a female kicking, stomping and punching a male lying on the floor of a bar room near the former John Thomas Funeral Home.
“The light-skinned male aided the female by beating the Caucasian man with a chain. The suspect only stopped the beating due to someone pulling him away,” the report said.
A detective assigned to the case visited the bar, located near Contant Car Wash, and obtained a copy of the security camera recording from April 8. The bar owner was asked to identify the male assailant in the video, which he did by pointing to his image on the recording.
To locate and interview the victim, investigators sought out his last-known address in Solberg. By the time they found him, it was April 17. The elderly man told detectives he remembered stopping by a bar in the Contant area for a couple of drinks. The next thing he knew, he said, he woke up in a hospital emergency room. As the questioning continued, the victim told police he did not recall the bar room incident but he had stitches, a bloody eye and a footprint-shaped bruise on his side.
A forensics technician was called to take pictures of those injuries. “Ten days after the incident and (sic) injuries was very apparent as if the incident had just occurred,” the detective said in the document.
Attempts to reach the suspect — identified as Lazarus — began after the interview. When a phone contact did not succeed, investigators issued a wanted poster. Shortly thereafter, a lawyer reached out to police and said Lazarus — his client — wanted to come in for questioning. When he did appear on May 1, authorities said he told them there was a reason why the incident occurred but offered no details. Lazarus was advised of his Miranda rights and charged with first- and third-degree assault, elder abuse, and disturbance of the peace.
Superior Court Magistrate Simone Van Holten-Turnbull declared there was probable cause to uphold the charges at a hearing held Wednesday. She also upheld the $75,000 bail set at the time of the arrest but said the defendant could obtain pretrial release upon posting a $5,000 cash bond.
Lazarus was also ordered to appear at an arraignment hearing on May 19 at 10 a.m.
