Willmar man sentenced for punching another man and beating him with his belt

WILLMAR -- Erick Antonio Caballero, 31, of Willmar, was sentenced Monday to a year and a day in prison, which was stayed and five years of probation on a third-degree assault charge for beating a man with a belt and his fists in June.

Caballero was also ordered to cooperate with agents from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and serve 149 days in jail, with credit for 149 days served, as part of his sentence handed down in Kandiyohi County District Court.

As part of a plea agreement, the charge was elevated from a fifth-degree misdemeanor assault charge and a felony second-degree assault charge and three other misdemeanor charges were dismissed.

The charges were filed after Willmar Police were called to a home along 11th Street Southeast around 2 a.m. June 7 on a report that people were fighting with knives.

A man there said Caballero chased him with a knife and had also assaulted several others at the residence.

Caballero ran away from officers, but was later located and arrested.

The man reported Ca-ballero had fought with another man and that he had attempted to separate them, but was hit in the head.

He said Caballero came after both of them with a knife and that the other man had taken off his belt to protect himself. A woman said she saw the chase with the knife, saw the victim laying in the grass and called the law. Another woman said Callabero had hit her and that she hid in the bathroom.

The second man, the man found laying in the grass, was interviewed at the emergency room.

He had chunks of flesh missing from his ear, a bite mark on his arm, other marks consistent with being assaulted and at least two marks on his arms that were made by the buckle end of a belt.

Officers took a belt into evidence that matched the marks on the man.