http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06256/721322-85.stm
Keith recounted how Mr. Downs, shortly before the start of their playoff game, took him aside in a nearby parking lot and spoke to him in “a kind of whisper.”
“He told me if I would hit Harry in the face he would pay me 25 dollars,” he said.
Keith said that during pregame warmups, he threw a baseball that bounced and hit Harry in the groin, causing the boy to go crying to his mother in the bleachers…
Mrs. Bowers testified that after her son was struck the second time, Mr. Downs went up to her and said he didn’t think Harry, who has a mild form of mental retardation, should play in the game.
“He said he should take the night off because the ball seemed to be after him,” she said…
Then later, when the team went to a local ice cream stand for a postgame treat, he confronted Mr. Downs.
"I said, ‘I hit Harry in the face. Where’s my 25 dollars?’ " he testified.
He said Mr. Downs told him he would give him the money during the fall baseball league, but that league was never organized…
Mr. Downs, 29, of Dunbar, is charged with two counts of criminal solicitation to commit aggravated assault, corruption of minors, conspiracy to commit simple assault and reckless endangerment. He and his defense attorney, Thomas Shaffer, rejected a December plea agreement offered by Fayette County District Attorney Nancy Vernon.
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