Yolo DA pursues hate-crime charges in Davis beating

The Yolo County District Attorney’s Office has filed battery, assault and criminal threats charges against a Davis teen in connection with last week’s beating of a gay man on I Street. Each count carries an enhancement alleging that the attack was a hate crime.

Meanwhile, prosecutors in Solano County are seeking a bail increase for 19-year-old Clayton Daniel Garzon in an unrelated assault case, online court records show. Garzon was scheduled to appear in court Thursday morning for that case.

In a four-page complaint filed Wednesday in Yolo Superior Court, the Yolo DA’s office charged Garzon with three felonies: battery with serious bodily injury, assault with means of force likely to produce great bodily injury and threats to commit a crime resulting in great bodily injury.

The hate-crime enhancements allege that Garzon carried out the March 10 attack — which resulted in a fractured skull and other major injuries to victim Lawrence “Mikey” Partida of Davis — because of Partida’s sexual orientation.

Partida, 32, remains in the care of an acute rehabilitation center in Sacramento after spending five days at the UC Davis Medical Center, several of them in the hospital’s intensive care unit. His recovery has included daily rounds of physical, occupational and speech therapy due to the injuries he sustained.

The assault charge against Garzon, who was arrested March 14, carries a second enhancement alleging infliction of great bodily injury, and Yolo prosecutors also filed a case enhancement charging Garzón with committing a felony while on bail for the pending felony offense in Solano County.

In that case, Garzon and a 16-year-old Carmichael boy are accused of assaulting five young men on Sept. 9, 2012, at a house party in Dixon, leaving four with stab wounds and a fifth with head trauma. Garzon posted bail following his arrest in connection with that incident.

The case’s prosecutor, Solano County Deputy District Attorney Andrew Horvath, could not be reached for comment Wednesday, nor could Garzon’s defense attorney, Thomas Maas. Maas has filed documents opposing the bail increase, online court records show.

Garzon is scheduled to be arraigned in the Yolo County case on April 12 and as of Wednesday remained free on $75,000 bail.

— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene