A man who jumped bail and went on the run after he was accused of mocking and sucker-punching a stranger with cerebral palsy was back behind bars on Monday, “where he belongs,” a prosecutor in suburban Philadelphia said.
Barry Baker, 29, was captured at a motel on Monday after more than a week in hiding, the Chester County District Attorney’s Office announced. Baker, from Georgetown, Delaware, skipped bail after he was charged with assaulting the victim outside a 7-Eleven convenience store on May 10, the DA’s office said.
Surveillance video showed Baker mocking the man outside the store, then suddenly punching him in his face. The victim escaped and called for help.
“The victim showed a lot of dignity. I cannot say the same for the defendant here,” Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan told CBS 3 News shortly after the attack. The DA called Baker “a bully.”
“Every decent citizen should be outraged by the defendant’s conduct. The victim is to be commended for keeping his cool and notifying the police,” Hogan added.
Baker posted bail and was released. After two additional arrest warrants were issued for him — one alleging a probation violation, the other failure to appear at a domestic relations hearing — authorities said he went on the run.
Baker was tracked down with the help of the U.S. Marshals Service and the Chester County Sheriff’s Fugitive Apprehension Unit.
“Every cop on the street told me that they were looking for this defendant,” Hogan said in a statement. “In addition, the public did an outstanding job through social media of getting the word out that the defendant was wanted. Nobody was going to quit until the defendant was in prison, where he belongs.”
This wasn’t Baker’s first brush with the law.
Roughly a decade ago, he pleaded guilty to stealing metal flag holders from veterans’ graves. He then sold the holders to a scrap metal company, CBS 3 reported.
A Chester County attorney who had been representing Baker is no longer representing him, the lawyer’s office told HuffPost. It’s unclear whether he has hired new legal counsel.