A staffer beaten with a baseball bat at U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly’s district office testified at a hearing Monday. Northern Virginia Bureau Chief Julie Carey reports the charges against the suspect have gone down from four to just one. (This story includes audio some may find disturbing.)
A congressional staffer testified Monday that she is still recovering months after a man allegedly attacked her and an intern with an aluminum baseball bat at the Northern Virginia office of Rep. Gerry Connolly.
Xuan-Kha Tran Pham, 49, of Fairfax, was charged in May with assaulting federal employees after the FBI said he struck an employee in the head with a metal bat, and hit an intern in the ribs.
A staffer said in court Monday that she was near the office entrance that day training the intern, who was on her first day at the job.
“A man … burst through door … took a couple of steps toward me, lifted a bat and swung and hit me in my arm," the staffer told the judge.
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She said she fell to the ground as the intern screamed, and the man repeatedly struck her in the head.
“As he was hitting me, he kept repeating, ‘You’re going to die’ over and over again,” she said.
A postal worker arrived and yelled at the attacker to get off her, which allowed her to escape, she testified.
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City of Fairfax Police Sgt. James Lewis arrived soon after. He testified he ordered Pham to drop the bat.
“I had my serivce weapon pointed at him. I tased him and he dropped the bat," Lewis said.
Police body camera video shows Pham falling to the ground as several officers handcuff him.
The staffer said she was treated for a concussion and she is still receiving occupational and physical therapy six months later.
A judge ruled Monday there was enough evidence to move forward with the aggravated malicious wounding charge for the bat attack on the staffer.
Pham allegedly hit the intern in the ribs, but prosecutors didn't call on her to testify, therefore, that charge was removed.
Before the attack at Connolly's office, Pham allegedly chased and threatened a woman with a bat in a Northern Virginia neighborhood. Prosecutors dropped two other charges connected to that attack.
"Prosecutors made a strategic decision regarding which witnesses to call at the preliminary hearing to best preserve the success of the case. Today’s hearing went according to plan: the most serious charge against the defendant has been bound over to Circuit Court," a spokeswoman for the Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney said in a statement.
Prosecutors have the option of later restoring the other charges with a direct indictment.
Since his arrest, Pham has primarily been held in a state psychiatric hospital.
His defense attorney said if the case goes to trial, she will seek to show Pham should be found not guilty by reason of insanity
There is also still a pending federal case in which Pham is charged with assaulting a U.S. government employee.
