St. John Tradewinds newspaper editor and publisher Tom Oat entered a not guilty plea in Territorial Court Thursday to charges of simple assault and trespassing.
Oat was arrested June 9 on a citizen's complaint filed by Public Works Department employee Ralph Titre after a scuffle near the gate of the Susannaberg transfer station. He appeared at the arraignment Thursday accompanied by his attorney, Treston Moore.
Since his advice of rights hearing on June 12, Oat has filed a counter-complaint against Titre, the transfer station weighmaster. Assistant Attorney General Guy Mitchell said the St. John publisher was seeking charges of assault and robbery, but as of Wednesday no charges had been filed, nor had any additional arrests been made.
At the arraignment, Judge Ive Swan said he would probably drop the charges against Oat and dismiss the case. However, he gave attorneys a schedule by which to file their arguments while he thought things over. "The government is deciding whether or not . . . to pursue this case, and, if so, on what kind of charges," Moore said after the hearing.
Shortly after the June 9 incident, Dean Blyden, a Tradewinds employee, said the Oat had gone to the transfer station after receiving complaints that workers were removing parts from cars that had been towed to the dump.
Public Works Deputy Commissioner Ira Wade has denied any wrongdoing by his workers. He says he told Titre to send Oat to his office if he came to the transfer station.
In court on June 12, Titre told Swan he tried to do that but Oat pointed a camera at him and began taking pictures. The weighmaster said he asked Oat to stop, then reached for the camera and that's when the scuffle began.
Titre also said Oat was involved in an earlier confrontation with Public Works employees when enforcement officers went to tow a Jeep Cherokee that had been used to deliver Tradewinds newspapers. The vehicle had been badly damaged days earlier in a late-night fire of suspicious origin.
Wade said he was asked to remove the Jeep by employees at the Cruz Bay Day Care Center who said the fumes from the burned vehicle parked outside the center were making some of the children sick.