Video: This was NOT the monthly meeting of the Mensa Society....
The Chicago Sun-Times has obtained video footage showing the “party-game” punch that killed a Romeoville man last year.
Tiffany Startz, 22, of Joliet can be seen in two September 2010 videos hitting John Powell in the face. The videos do not show Powell’s death, which occurred just moments later when he collapsed to the ground.
Prosecutors showed the videos to Will County Judge Edward Burmila last week as they put Startz on trial for reckless conduct and battery. Burmila found Startz not guilty Wednesday after her attorneys, Ira Goldstein and Edward Masters, argued prosecutors didn’t prove their case.
“Nobody wins here,” Startz’s mother, Theresa Startz, said after her daughter’s acquittal.
The videos were released by the Crest Hill Police Department Friday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
John Powell appears first in one video, before a man raises his arms and declares he wants to “Get this s*** on YouTube!”
A crowd forms around Startz and Powell, who leans forward with his arms behind his back. Startz throws her closed-fisted, right-handed punch and sends Powell staggering backward.
The second, shorter video shows the punch from a different angle.
Will County Coroner Patrick O’Neil said last year a vein opened in Powell’s neck when his head snapped back, causing a brain injury. Powell collapsed soon after the punch, and guests called an ambulance to take him to Provena Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet. He was declared dead in the emergency room.
Powell took the punch after Jimmy Mounts of Romeoville, 28, offered $5 to anyone willing to take a punch in the face from Startz. Goldstein said Startz took off a ring before she hit Powell. She and Mounts were charged criminally about three months after the party.
Mounts avoided trial by pleading guilty to lying to police about how Powell was hurt. He was sentenced to two years of conditional discharge, meaning he’ll avoid jail time if he abides by the rules of his sentence.
Startz’s attorneys, though, argued she committed no crime because she had Powell’s permission to throw the punch.
