Jury finds Bainbridge man guilty of assault; not guilty of felonious assault

A Bainbridge man originally indicted on a second-degree felony charge of felonious assault was convicted of a lesser charge of assault, a first-degree misdemeanor, following a trial Monday, Sept. 29 in Highland County Common Pleas Court.

As previously reported, Timothy B. Campbell, 58, was indicted by a Highland County grand jury in May on the felonious assault charge. Following a trial that began Monday morning and continued with deliberations into the early evening hours, a jury determined that Campbell was not guilty of felonious assault but found him guilty of the lesser charge of assault.

After the verdicts were read by Clerk of Courts Ike Hodson Monday evening, Highland County Common Pleas Court Judge Rocky Coss thanked and dismissed the jury before proceeding with sentencing.

Highland County Prosecutor Anneka Collins asked Coss to impose “a term of incarceration, even if it’s served in the county jail.

“I am astounded that they didn't find this to be serious physical harm,” Collins said. “I can't imagine being someplace and having someone beat me to the point of unconsciousness, and to the point of needing stitches and having a broken nose and a sprained neck, and that not being serious physical harm. 

“That being said, that was their decision, but this is the kind of violence and bullying that cannot be overlooked. To set the precedent that this is OK to do is bad for the county, and there was no evidence at all that Mr. Campbell was acting in self defense.”

The victim also asked for Campbell to “be incarcerated and that we do everything we can to make sure this defendant will never approach me, my family, my parents, any of our families, because I do fear retaliation.”

Defense attorney James Arnold said that Campbell had six days of jail time credit, plus he has been placed “on house arrest with a no contact order” with the victim. 

“I would ask that you continue that,” Arnold said.

Campbell also spoke, saying he wanted to “apologize to [the victim] and everybody else. 

“The jury did find me guilty, my peers did, and I apologize, and I'm sorry everything happened,” Campbell said.

Coss addressed Campbell, saying that his opinion was that “this verdict is the result of” the “poorly” written law.

“Next to the definition of ‘recklessly,’ the definition of ‘serious physical harm’ is the most poorly worded statute in this criminal code,” Coss said. “The way I would look at it, would I be willing to trade places and accept the harm that was caused in this case? I think the answer that is no, but unfortunately, the way the law was drafted, the jury found that it did not meet that standard.

“I will say this, Mr. Campbell, I think that you're a liar, think you're a bully, think you've got a big mouth. There's no reason for you to go after [the victim] at all.”

Coss continued that if “self defense” was Campbell’s argument, then “you need to start shutting your big mouth and keep it to yourself. 

“But no, you want to go out and show everybody what a tough guy you are, which isn't — you’re just a bully,” Coss said. “There's no evidence at all in this case you acted in self defense, and everybody in this case knows that.” 

Coss sentenced Campbell to 180 days in the county jail, with jail time credit of six days, “in order to send a message.” With the conviction and sentence, Coss said that Campbell’s substitute teaching licensure should be revoked by the state.

“If there's a worse example of somebody to the youth of a school, I don't know who it could be,” Coss said. “Maybe a sex offender. Other than that, what you've done is a disgrace.”

Coss also issued a $1,000 fine and ordered Campbell to pay court costs. 

Collins told the jury during her opening statement that the evidence would prove Campbell “did cause serious physical harm” to a victim on or about Feb. 14, 2025 at a Greenfield establishment. She alleged that Campbell had called the victim a slur on several occasions prior to the assault, and that he approached the victim on Feb. 14 asking to “talk about” the incident. 

Collins said the victim said he did not want to talk, but that Campbell “doesn’t like to be told no.

“He became enraged,” Collins said. “He told [the victim], ‘I’m going to smash your [expletive] head through the wall.’”

Collins alleged that Campbell proceeded to hit the victim “more than once,” including in the face and in the head, causing the victim’s head to “bounce off [a] concrete wall multiple times.

“This defendant hit [the victim] so hard that [the victim] was knocked out of his chair,” Collins said. “He was on the floor. He was bleeding from his nose and his ears, and he was unconscious.”

According to Collins, the victim was taken to the emergency room, where he was diagnosed with a broken nose and sprained neck. The victim also received stitches due to injuries to his ear, and he “suffered a severe headache” that caused him to later seek additional medical attention.

“The video and witness testimony will prove that this defendant was the aggressor,” Collins said. “[The victim] never moved. [The victim] never threw a punch. This defendant repeatedly hit [the victim], and [the victim] did not even raise his hands.”

Arnold told the jury that in an incident prior to Feb. 14, the victim had “accused [Campbell] of looking at his wife inappropriately” and that Campbell had approached the victim Feb. 14 “to apologize.” Arnold alleged that the victim had “become combative” before Campbell hit the victim.

“You're going to hear other circumstances that you will consider that might convince you that there's a reason Tim didn't want to get hit first, and you'll hear that evidence,” Arnold said.

Both attorneys said in their opening statements that the question of whether Campbell “caused serious physical harm” was the crux of the case for the jury to consider. Collins spoke of the “acute pain and suffering” the victim experienced, while Arnold downplayed the victim’s injuries, saying that the victim attended several public events the following day. 

“At the end of the day, I don't believe the evidence can support a conviction for felonious assault,” Arnold said. 

The state called a dozen witnesses, beginning with Dr. Daren Barker, an emergency medicine physician at Adena Greenfield Medical Center. Barker reviewed medical records from the victim’s visit to the emergency room on Feb. 14.

“He had a laceration to his right ear,” Dr. Barker said of the victim’s injuries. “It had some bleeding. He had an abrasion to his nose, some facial contusions, mostly to the nose as well.”

Dr. Barker testified that he ordered “a CT scan of [the victim’s] head, facial bones and neck,” which revealed “a nondisplaced fracture of the left tip of the nasal bone.” The victim also suffered “a laceration to the right ear” that required stitches; “an abrasion to the tip of the nose;” “post-traumatic headache;” and “cervical (neck) sprain.”

During his cross-examination, Arnold referred to Dr. Barker’s notes of the victim’s “normal appearance.” In answer to Arnold’s questioning, Barker confirmed that the victim’s heart rate and breathing were “normal” and that the victim was “alert and oriented.”  

The second witness was an employee of the Greenfield establishment who was working during the night of the incident. She testified that she had been outside smoking when she saw Campbell leaving.

“I said, ‘Hey, Campbell, what’s wrong?’ And he was like, ‘Oh, I just beat the [expletive] out of somebody,” she said during her brief testimony. 

The third witness was another employee of the establishment who testified that she heard “a commotion” from across the room, and when she went to check on the situation, she found the victim “laying on the floor.” She said the victim was “completely unconscious” and that she offered to call for help.

The employee said that a Greenfield police officer asked for a copy of security footage, and Collins played a copy of that video for the employee to identify individuals present at the time of the incident. She pointed out the victim as “sitting against the wall” and Campbell as “looking like he was having a conversation” with the victim initially. 

Under cross examination, the third witness identified other individuals who were shown in the video footage and their respective proximity to the defendant and victim.

The fourth witness, another employee of the Greenfield establishment, testified that the victim was “at the table across from me” sitting by a wall during the Feb. 14 incident. She testified that she saw Campbell “pointing at” the victim, then she “saw him hit [the victim] two times.” She added that she did not see the victim say or do anything to Campbell prior to the alleged assault. 

A fifth witness was another individual who was at the Greenfield establishment, saying the victim was located “behind me, up against a wall” on the night of Feb. 14. She testified that she “only [saw Campbell] hit [the victim] one time,” and the victim “went on the floor.

“He had blood all over him,” the witness said of the victim. 

The sixth witness was also an employee of the Greenfield establishment and said he witnessed Campbell and the victim “having a conversation” before “Tim started swinging” at the victim and knocking the victim out of his chair.

After a break for lunch, the seventh witness presented by the state was the victim. The victim testified that he and Campbell “had a few interactions” prior to the alleged assault, all of which he said involved Campbell commenting on how “no one liked” the victim or calling him a slur. 

On Feb. 14, the victim said that Campbell approached him “wanting to talk about the time” he called the victim a slur, and the victim said it wasn’t “the time or the place” and asked Campbell to leave.

“He leaned in close to me and said, ‘If I slam your head through this [expletive] wall, I'll bet you'll [expletive]  talk to me then,’” the victim said. “I said, ‘Tim, no.’ That's when Tim hit me, and I lost consciousness.”

The victim testified that when he came to, “I was sitting on the floor, and I could taste blood in my mouth.” After sitting with ice and a towel, then later cleaning the blood from his face, the victim said he went to the hospital for treatment.

After his initial emergency room trip, the victim said he visited a different hospital several days later due to being “very nauseated, sleeping a lot” and suffering from headaches and blurred vision. At that hospital trip, he was diagnosed with a concussion.

“Have you suffered any long-term effects from this?” Collins asked.

“Still to this day, I have a lot of ringing in my right ear,” the victim said. “My neck is still stiff. I'm having trouble sleeping, incredibly anxious.”

Along with visiting the emergency department the night of Feb. 14, the victim also testified that he filed a report at the Greenfield Police Department. Photos taken by police of the victim’s injuries were reviewed while he was on the witness stand.

Collins also asked the victim about the social events he attended Feb. 15, as referenced by the defense attorney in opening statements. The victim said he had a prior commitment to go a particular event in the evening, but he was “in excruciating pain” throughout it.

“I spent the majority of the time either out in the hallway, in the bathroom throwing up, or out in my car so I could get the headache to subside and I could come back into the room,” he said.

The victim added that he had also attended another event earlier in the day but has no memory of it.

The victim’s wife was the eighth witness and corroborated her husband’s recollection of several “interactions” with Campbell leading up to Feb. 14. On the night of the alleged assault, she said she was in the restroom washing her hands when she could hear someone yelling that her husband was hurt. 

“I remember pushing through people to get to where I knew he was last,” she said. “When I arrived to where he was, he was completely slumped up against the wall, down. His head was crunched up against his chest. He was unconscious, and there was blood everywhere.

“I remember his hands were inverted, like, almost like a seizure activity. His eyes were rolled back.”

Along with testifying about the aftermath of that night’s events, the victim’s wife said that although her husband was physically present at events the next day, “he was very much not there” due to his concussion.

The ninth witness was another individual who was at the establishment on the night of Feb. 14. She testified that she overheard some of the conversation between Campbell and the victim, then heard “the commotion” that ensued.

“It literally looked like [the victim’s] head was bouncing off the wall like three or four times, and then [the victim] went to the ground, and he definitely looked out,” she said. “The defendant was hitting him.

“[The victim] fell out of the chair to the floor between the table we were sitting at and kind of a half wall.”

The victim said that “there were several people trying to get [Campbell] to stop and telling him to stop” and that “there was blood everywhere.”

A 10th witness testified briefly that she had been with the victim on another occasion when Campbell had called the victim a slur. 

An 11th witness also testified briefly about the victim’s demeanor on Feb. 15, the evening after the alleged assault. The 11th witness said that the victim was “wincing” in response to light and sound and “had to leave several times.”

The 12th witness by the state was Quinton Smith of the Greenfield Police Department, who investigated the case. He testified that when the victim filed the report Feb. 14, he “had blood coming out of his ear,” as well as “blood on his jacket, blood on his pants and shoes.

“He stated to me that he was assaulted by Tim Campbell,” Smith said.

After interviewing the victim and taking witness statements and photographs (which he reviewed on the stand), Smith said he patrolled the area looking for Campbell, while he also sought “video footage of the incident” from the establishment. 

Smith testified that he called Campbell Feb. 15 and advised that he had a warrant, and Campbell “turned himself in on February 19.”

The state rested following Smith’s testimony, after which the defense called one witness as well as Campbell. The witness said he saw the victim the day after the alleged assault, where they said “hello” to one another. He said he was aware of the incident the night before but “didn’t notice” anything different about the victim.

Campbell then took the stand in his own defense. He testified that he only had one negative interaction with the victim before the night of Feb. 14, which was an incident in which he said the victim yelled at him for looking at his wife. 

Campbell testified that on Feb. 14, he had been at the establishment for about 45 minutes when he went to talk to the victim. Campbell said he approached the victim “to apologize for the words we had” and that the victim cursed at him. He testified that the victim “came my way,” which is what prompted him to hit the victim.

“Right after I hit him, I turned around myself and walked straight out the door,” Campbell said.

Campbell also said he remembered talking to the employee outside who claimed he said he “beat” the victim.

“I think I said, ‘Hey, [the victim] started stuff in there,’” Campbell said. “I said, ‘I think you might go check on it.’”

During her cross examination, Collins said that the testimony of all the witnesses was that Campbell had been at the establishment “a few minutes, made a beeline for [the victim] and then hit him.

“So everyone else is lying?” Collins asked.

“I don’t know, but I was there for at least 45 minutes,” Campbell said.

“And you hit him just one time, and you backed up and got out?” Collins asked.

“No,” Campbell said. “I hit him three times.”

The defense rested after Campbell’s testimony, and after a brief recess, the jury returned to hear instructions and closing arguments.

In her first closing argument, Collins recapped the facts of the case as alleged by the state and brought out by witnesses throughout the day. She also emphasized that Campbell was not acting in “self defense.

“[The victim] was sitting in a chair, this defendant was standing, and every witness that saw the the attack from beginning to end, all agree on one thing,” Collins told the jury. “They all agree that [the victim] did not move.

“Words alone are not enough to justify the use of force. That's in your jury instructions. That is the law. Even if [the victim] had said something that was offensive to this defendant, that's not grounds for him to start pummeling him in the face.”

Arnold said there was “a dispute of the facts” as to interactions between the defendant and victim leading up to Feb. 14. He cast doubt on whether witnesses could hear what was going on and said that “to describe this as bashing his head in a wall is an exaggeration, number one, and making a mountain out of a molehill.”

Arnold told the jury to refer to the doctor’s notes when debating whether “serious physical harm” was caused. 

“He never mentioned any pain in the back of his head,” Arnold said. “The doctor didn't find anything abnormal about his head.

“No bruises, no black eyes, nothing, so if that's a beatdown, it wasn’t a very good one.”

Arnold said there was “no acute pain” or injuries that “require any medical treatment,” nor did anyone call an ambulance to the scene.

“I don't doubt there was a lot of blood,” Arnold said. “Anybody's got popped in the nose, it bleeds, plus he had that cut on his ear that's going to bleed until it stops. 

“If this was so bad of a beatdown, he got no soreness, pain, lumps or anything on the back of his head. He has no black eye. That's not serious physical harm. In fact, it's just the opposite.”

Arnold also said there it was “hard to believe” Campbell would “confront” the victim when the victim had “confronted him” in the past about looking at his wife. He argued that according to Campbell’s testimony, “he didn’t want to get hit.

“I'm going to ask you to find not guilty of felonious assault,” Campbell said. “If you don't find self defense, I'm going to ask you to find him not guilty on the felonious assault.”

Campbell referred to the judge’s instructions on finding whether the state “proved the case of assault beyond reasonable doubt, which is physical harm that he knowingly caused. 

“He did cause a broken nose, a cut on his ear,” Campbell said. “That's where I'm going to be at the end of this case.”

Collins responded, in her final closing argument, that the “acute distress” that Arnold referred to was reminiscent of an “absolute” life-or-death emergency.

“We aren't alleging that, so, no, it's not on the medical records,” Collins said.

Referring to there not being an ambulance, Collins said there was medical personnel in the building at the time of the assault, while they were able to easily drive to the hospital. 

Collins then reminded the jury of what the state’s witnesses said in their respective testimony versus the defense’s argument that the victim “moved” before Campbell struck him.

“The only person that testified that [the victim] moved is the defendant, the only person that has something to gain from being untruthful, the only person with a bias, the only person with the reason to lie,” Collins said. 

Had Campbell been acting in self defense, Collins argued, he would have waited for police and “explained my side of this” to them. 

“In the jury instructions, the state must prove at least one thing in order for you not to consider self defense: the defendant cannot be the aggressor,” Collins said. If the defendant is the aggressor, no self defense. There's no question he threw the first punch and he threw every punch after that. There's no question from the witnesses, the victim and the video evidence, this defendant was the aggressor.”

In addition, Collins said, the jury instructions list that under the law, “words alone do not justify the use of force,” so even if the victim said something to upset Campbell, it “does not matter.

“The state doesn't have to prove motive, but the motive here is clear: the defendant's a bully,” Collins said. “He doesn't like to be told no.”

Collins also argued that even Campbell admitted acting “knowingly,” while she explained the definition of “serious physical harm.” She said that if the state had proven any of the elements, not “each of them,” it constitutes serious physical harm. Those included psychological effects, “serious risk of death”  or any “permanent incapacity, whether partial or total.

“It's obvious that this defendant, and only this defendant, caused serious physical harm to [the victim],” Collins said. “Make no mistake, this was a beating. [The victim] suffered broken bones, a broken nose, unconsciousness, a sprained neck, bleeding from his ears that had to be repaired with stitches. He suffered PTSD and continues dealing with that today. 

“I told you when this trial started that not a single person would support this defendant’s story of self defense, and not a single person did support the story. In this case, this defendant decided that [the victim] deserved to be beat because he didn't want to talk to him, and this defendant delivered that beating.”

A little over 20 minutes into their deliberations, the jury requested, and was granted, access to the security video footage. The court returned on the record around 5:30 p.m., after a little over an hour of deliberations, with the jury finding Campbell not guilty of felonious assault and guilty of assault.

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