Man accused in fatal Middletown bar fight scheduled for trial next month
Jun. 14—A Middletown man accused in a fatal bar fight and his attorney were in Butler County Common Pleas Court Thursday confirming they are ready for trial in July .
Brian Ingram, 52, is charged with murder and felonious assault after allegedly punching and kicking a man on Feb. 25 at Billy T's on Tytus Avenue.
The man Ingram allegedly assaulted, Phillip Taulbee, 56, of Middletown, died a day after the incident at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton.
Ingram was indicted by a Butler County grand jury in March, and Judge Keith Spaeth set bond at $300,000.
Police were called to Billy T's at 8 p.m. on July 19 for a bar fight. Officers found Taulbee had been severely assaulted. In a 911 call to police, a woman said a man was "knocked out" and lying in the ground.
"His head hit the concrete hard," she told a dispatcher.
Attorney Frank Schiavone III told the judge at Thursday's hearing that the case would proceed to trial.
"There have been no serious negotiations in this case," Schiavone told the Journal-News. "When you are facing 15 to life, I would never let a client plead guilty to a murder. We are forced into a trial in this case."
The defense attorney said there is a "real back story" to the incident.
"It wasn't a random thing and the story will be told," Schiavone said. "I can tell you one thing for sure, Brian Ingram did not intend to kill that man. Did he engage him? Absolutely, he thought it was going to be a good, old-fashioned bar fight. In no way did he ever intend to kill him."
The felony murder charge is the law in Ohio that says any violent felony that ends in a death is murder, he said.
Police and Schiavone said there is a video of the fight which will be part of the trial.
