Dover Man Accused Of Targeting Victims’ Heads In Several Assaults
Rochester, MN (KROC AM News) - Prosecutors say the inmate who attacked an Olmsted County detention deputy last month has a history of violence that has a common theme - he goes after the victims’ heads.
And that history was used to file a serious assault charge against the Dover man.
The Olmsted County Attorney’s Office has filed three assault charges against 32-year-old Joseph Martin. One alleges Martin “specifically intended to inflict substantial bodily harm when he targeted” the victim’s head.
The victim in this case was another inmate in the Olmsted County jail. Martin is accused of attacking the inmate and then turning on the 70-year-old deputy when he tried to intervene. The deputy was also punched in the head.
The new criminal complaint lists two other violent incidents Martin was charged with.
One was a 2019 attack on another inmate at a state prison where Martin was serving time for physically and sexually assaulting his girlfriend. The other incident happened last summer when he knocked out two men at a bar in Dover after repeatedly punching the victims in the head.
Martin was scheduled to be sentenced this week for the Dover incident and for assaulting his girlfriend in January. The sentencing was delayed because of the new case.