craigdailypress.com

A Craig seventh-grader pleaded innocent Thursday to charges stemming from a lunchroom fight with another student.

Austin Sadvar, 12, has been charged with third-degree assault and ethnic intimidation, a fifth-degree felony, his mother, Nancy Sadvar, said.

The boy's mother said she does not understand why the district attorney insists on prosecuting the case, calling it "outrageous" and "a waste of taxpayer money."

"It's hard," she said. "You want to discipline your kid for fighting and you can't because you've got to defend his actions."

Court files on Austin's case are sealed because Austin is a juvenile, but the Daily Press is publishing his name with his mother's permission.

The fight occurred when Austin was 11 and in the sixth grade at Craig Intermediate School, Nancy Sadvar said. A Mexican student had been harassing Austin in Spanish when the pair got into a shoving match, she said.

When the fight was over, the other boy complained that his neck hurt, and he was transported to the hospital.

Nancy Sadvar said both children were fine.

The school resource officer responded to the fight and had the boys write statements about what happened.

"Maybe now he'll start speaking some English," Nancy Sadvar said her son wrote.

But she said that he was angry at the time.

Her son isn't racist, she said. Nor had he been in trouble before, Austin's sixth-grade teacher said.

"As far as I know he didn't get into other trouble," Karen Rohnke said.

Amy Fitch, deputy district attorney, had dropped the ethnic intimidation charges when she was prosecuting the case. But Bonnie Roesink, 14th Judicial Circuit District Attorney, took over the case and revived the felony charge, Nancy Sadvar said.

Roesink did not return phone calls from the Daily Press.

The other student involved in the fight has since left the country, but the district attorney insists on continuing the case, Nancy Sadvar said.

The Sadvars' attorney, Kristopher Hammond of Hammond, Atwell and Combs in Steamboat Springs, informed District Judge Paul McLimans he intended to file a motion to appoint a special prosecutor to the case.

The judge set a motions deadline of Oct. 1.

Hammond declined to elaborate on his reasons for filing the motion.

Hammond said he plans to call three to four witnesses at the trial, scheduled for Nov. 15.

Rob Gebhart can be reached at 824-7031 or rgebhart@craigdailypress.com.