Glen Ellyn man gets 10 years for beating father, blames dog
A Glen Ellyn man convicted of aggravated domestic battery in a 2016 beating that left his father with two brain hemorrhages, a nearly amputated ear and a broken jaw is headed to prison.
But not before throwing his dog, Moose, under the bus for assisting in the carnage that led to Charles Mitchell's initially being charged with attempted murder.
During his sentencing hearing, Mitchell, 27, admitted to beating his dad, though he said his father wasn't injured “that bad.” But he denied being involved in the wound that nearly removed his father's ear.
“I think my dog smelled my father's blood and my dog may have chewed my dad's ear off,” Mitchell told Judge Daniel Guerin during the first part of his two-day sentencing hearing that concluded Wednesday.
Before handing down the 10-year sentence on Wednesday, Guerin said Mitchell “lives in a world of self-righteous denial” in which everyone is to blame but himself.
“You've taken the ‘dog ate my homework excuse and elevated it to a despicable level of ‘my dog ate my dad's ear,'” Guerin said. “When you see responsibility coming, you turn and walk away. You've done it your whole life.”
A 12-member DuPage County jury deliberated for slightly more than five hours in March before convicting Mitchell of the aggravated domestic battery of his father and finding him not guilty of attempted murder.
Mitchell, who represented himself throughout the trial, claimed he hit his 61-year-old father in self-defense during a fight.
Prosecutors alleged, witnesses testified and Guerin recapped Wednesday that Mitchell first attacked his brother, Joseph Mitchell, in a dispute over cellphone use sometime after midnight on June 14, 2016. Then, sometime after 1 a.m., Charles Mitchell severely beat his father, John Mitchell, leaving him in a pool of blood between two hotel beds.
Joseph Mitchell testified that his brother scratched him on his throat and gouged his left eye before he ran to the hotel lobby to call police.
After police arrested Charles in the domestic assault of Joseph, Joseph returned to the hotel room and found their father, John Mitchell, on the floor.
“You're anger is volcanic,” Guerin told Charles Mitchell. “You mercilessly kicked and beat your father to a bloody pulp in that hotel room and I think you were content to leave him there.”
During the sentencing hearing, prosecutors called in more than a dozen police officers who had either arrested or dealt with 17 cases Mitchell has been involved in since 2009. Nearly all of them testified to Mitchell being “agitated,” “aggressive” and “belligerent during their encounters.
When given a chance to speak one last time before Guerin imposed his sentence, Mitchell told Guerin his father's injuries were “drastically overstated and exaggerated” but that he was remorseful nonetheless. He also requested the minimum three-year sentence.
“If it was me, I wouldn't have even gone to the hospital,” Mitchell said. “And, of course, I have remorse or else my father would be dead.”
Mitchell must serve 85 percent of the sentence before being eligible for the four years of parole that follows his sentence. He will be given credit for the 330 days he was held on $1 million bail.