A St. Paul man has been sentenced to three years of probation for his part in an assault at the 2021 Minnesota State Fair that left a 24-year-old man unconscious and hospitalized with head injuries.
Marquise Donta Brown, 22, entered a guilty plea in November to aiding and abetting a third-degree felony assault causing substantial bodily harm. He appeared before Ramsey County District Judge Kelly Olmstead on Monday for sentencing.
According to charges, a woman attending the Fair on Sept. 6 reported seeing two other women steal a man’s wallet. When she followed and confronted them, they attacked her and her sister-in-law. The woman’s husband intervened, and Brown and Justin Theodore Morgan, then 18 and also of St. Paul, jumped in and assaulted him, according to witnesses.
Witnesses identified Morgan and Brown as the attackers, telling police that Morgan picked the husband up and slammed him onto the ground and that Brown kicked or stomped on his head, charges say.
Judge Olmstead’s sentence was a stay of imposition, which means the court accepted and recorded that Brown is guilty, but did not impose a prison sentence. If he successfully completes the requirements of the probation, the conviction will be deemed a misdemeanor, rather than a felony, under the law.
A first-degree assault charge was dismissed at sentencing.
Morgan also was charged in connection with the attack. In December, the 19-year-old was sentenced to five years of supervised probation and 1,000 hours of community service.
