Nicholas Barraco, then owner and manager of a Mount Greenwood pizza place, was working a Saturday evening shift last summer when he said he tried to kick out a rowdy and intoxicated group of men.
That night, June 22, was his last night of work. He was hit on the head, he said, and woke up days later in a hospital with a cracked skull, the beginning of a long and incomplete recovery.
Barraco took the stand on Thursday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, accusing four suburban men of violently attacking him and other workers, as well as a patron who was an off-duty Chicago police officer, outside Barraco’s Ristorante in the 3000 block of West 111th Street.
The brawl at the Far Southwest Side restaurant ignited outrage in the neighborhood, where community members subsequently held a vigil for Barraco, who suffered a brain bleed. A bench trial opened Thursday to a packed courtroom.
Andrew Fedyk, of La Grange Park, Frank Paris, of River Forest, Harry Kenny, of Glen Ellyn, and John Powers IV, of Oak Park are facing multiple felony counts of aggravated battery, accused of injuring Barraco and others, including an off-duty Chicago police officer. The men were 20 at the time, drinking underage at the restaurant.
“They were swearing,” Barraco testified. “They didn’t want to leave.”
The men elected to have their case heard by Cook County Judge Ursula Walowski rather than by a jury. In suits and ties, they watched the proceedings from a packed defense table.
Their attorneys argued that the restaurant staff escalated the situation, painting the workers as the aggressors who improperly served them alcohol and wanted to teach the younger men a lesson.
“The young boys acted as young boys and the adults also acted as young boys,” said attorney Todd Pugh, who represents Kenny.
Prosecutors showed video of the confrontation, which was captured on business surveillance cameras as well as by cell phone footage shot by a passerby.
Ricky Velarde, a 46-year-old manager at Barraco’s, told the judge that as he tried to kick out the group, he got pulled out onto the sidewalk. They taunted him and others, he said, yelling, “Come on, big boy.”
Velarde said they took a hat from a patron, then jumped him when he tried to retrieve it.
“I saw stars,” Velarde said. “I fell to the ground.”
He grew tearful when he testified that he also saw Barraco fall.
“Sorry,” Velarde said. “Nick is like my father.”
