Attorney Charged With Attempted Murder in Bizarre Attack on Lawmaker
Watching his father fight a gut-wrenching legal battle motivated Augustus Mendenhall to go to law school. But the decades-old property dispute still festered, resulting in a bizarre incident this past weekend that left the 38-year-old attorney jailed in an attempted murder case and a 66-year-old Indiana state lawmaker battered and bruised.
Rep. Edward Delaney (D-Indianapolis), who is also an Indianapolis lawyer, says Mendenhall pulled a gun on him in Carmel, Ind., on Saturday after the two met for the first time for what he thought was going to be a real estate representation, reports the Indianapolis Star.
After Mendenhall unsuccessfully attempted to shoot Delaney, he beat him, according to authorities and the lawmaker’s family, leaving him with facial fractures, broken ribs and bruises.
“He grabbed the gun, and things went out of my control from that situation on,” Mendenhall told WXIN-TV, a local Fox News affiliate. “It was never my intent to do him physical harm. Only teach him a lesson.”
He is being held in the Hamilton County Jail in lieu of $3 million bail.
Authorities were called to the scene Saturday night after another driver recognized Delaney in a stopped car and thought Delaney seemed to be signaling for help with unusual gestures. When Carmel police arrived, they found Mendenhall on top of Delaney in the car, reports a subsequent Indianapolis Star article.
Police said Mendenhall ran from the scene, but was halted when officers used a stun gun on him.
Mendenahll told WXIN that he was seeking revenge against Delaney for a legal dispute that dates back to a 1983 pornography bust concerning an adult bookstore that Mendenhall’s father had agreed to lease space to in a building he owned. The Marion County prosecutor at the time seized the building, and Mendenhall’s father fought the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he won. But the legal battle bankrupted him, and he attempted, without success, to collect damages from the county prosecutor, who was determined to be immune from civil liability, according to Fox and the Star.
Delaney’s law firm reportedly represented the owner of a shopping mall in a civil action against Mendenhall that was related to the 1983 porn bust.
Delaney is expected to recover fully from his injuries.
