Break ups with your significant other can be messy affairs. They’re often emotionally and mentally draining. Knowing how to properly deal with the aftermath can also be shaky ground. Should you break it off cleanly and never talk again? Maybe try to stay friends? Or should you lure your ex into a schoolyard and have your new better half and his friends beat the daylight out of him?
Apparently, the New Jersey woman contacted her ex to ask him to chauffeur her around in her new car. For some reason, the yet-to-be indentified man agreed. Eventually, Tocci brought her ex to a schoolyard and requested they take a walk. However, the night didn’t end in a rekindling of their loss love, but a brutal beating.
Daniel Chaupiz, 20, Tocci’s current boyfriend, led the charge. He and his two friends beat Tocci’s ex with a baseball bat and pipe while Tocci watched the action unfold. They then robbed him of his money and broke his cell phone for good measure. Fortunately for the victim, he was eventually able to flag down some help from a nearby home and was sent off to the hospital for head injuries. Even better, Tocci, Chaupiz, and one other perpetrator were apprehended. Though the last suspect remains at large, all three have been charged.
Chaupiz got pinched for aggravated assault and robbery. Tocci on the other hand so far has only been charged with robbery and theft. She’s currently out on $50,000 bail. It seems pretty lenient for sure, but it might not be the end of the story for her. She could be facing more charges.
That’s because of conspiracy and accomplice liability. Both can lead to result in Tocci being charged with aggravated assault as well.
You’ve no doubt heard both of these terms before. What you might not know if that they’re both separate and distinct crimes in their own right. Conspiracy requires that a plan to commit a crime be formed and that an overt act be done to in furtherance of that crime. Theoretically, in Tocci’s case, if she and her current boyfriend made a plan to attack her ex before she lured him to the yard, she and Chaupiz could both be charged with conspiracy. For Tocci, her overt act would be bringing her ex to the beating.
As far as accomplice liability goes, this requires that a person give aid or encouragement to another person with the intent that a specific crime be committed. In Tocci’s case, making an accomplice charge stick might be hard since she only stood by and watched the attack happen. Though she brought her ex to the schoolyard, it’s not certain right now whether or not she intended the attack to happen. Based on the facts available, Tocci’s failure to intervene in the attack would likely be insufficient proof of her aiding or encouraging the attack. She could make the argument that she was simply stunned and too afraid to intervene.
For now, Chaupiz and the other assailant remain in police custody in lieu of $100,000 bail. As for the victim, he was released from the hospital. We’ll have to wait and see if any more charges will be brought against Tocci. But what do you guys think, should she get the book thrown at her or was she just a less-than-innocent party caught up in madness?