Staff photo / Ed Runyan The four young men who went on trial this week on a charge of felonious assault in a Jan. 12 incident in the men’s room at Bogey’s Double Bogeys Bar & Grill in the Southern Park Mall in Boardman embrace after they were found not guilty Wednesday by Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge R. Scott Krichbaum. They are, from left, Kyle Patterson, 27; Luke Collins, 22; Caleb Gearhart, 27; and Tyler Dogoda, 31.

YOUNGSTOWN — Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge R. Scott Krichbaum found all four men who went on trial this week not guilty of felonious assault in a Jan. 12 confrontation in the men’s room at Double Bogey’s Bar & Grill at the Southern Park Mall in Boardman.

The trial without a jury resumed Wednesday morning with three of the four defendants testifying, followed by closing arguments and the judge taking less than 30 minutes to announce his verdict.

The defendants hugged their attorneys and each other and sighed deep sighs of relief when the verdicts were read and the judge had left the bench.

The defendants were Kyle Patterson, 27, of Boardman; Luke Collins, 22, of Campbell; Caleb Gearhart, 27, of Austintown; and Tyler Dogoda, 31, of Boardman.

The trial began Monday and resumed Wednesday morning with defense witnesses before closing arguments were given, and then verdicts were read around noon. Court was closed Tuesday for the Veterans Day holiday.

The four were indicted in September on an offense that could have produced eight-year prison sentences if they had been convicted. The charges alleged that they knowingly caused serious physical harm to another man, 27, early Jan. 12, just before the bar’s closing time.

The accuser testified Monday that he and Patterson were in conflict in October 2024 at a downtown Youngstown restaurant / bar, but no punches were thrown that day.

On Jan. 12, the accuser said he saw Patterson when he entered Double Bogey’s about 12:30 a.m. with a group of people, but he did not know the three other men, saying he went into the restroom and saw that Patterson also was in there.

He said Patterson gave him a menacing look before Patterson walked past him from behind toward the exit. The accuser said he noticed that there were three other men besides Patterson near the bathroom exit, “completely blocking” him from leaving. Patterson was in front of the three others, he said.

The accuser said Patterson shoved him two times, but while he wrestled with Patterson, Dogoda struck him with a punch to the face, and “the lights went out,” meaning he lost consciousness, he said. When he woke up, he was alone.

Though the accuser, of New Middletown, did not allege that Collins or Gearhart assaulted him, the accuser said they stood in a 30-inch-wide doorway, preventing him from leaving.

His family doctor testified the accuser suffered a grade 3 concussion, the most severe type.

During cross-examination by lawyers for the defendants, the accuser agreed that he initially told Boardman police that the only physical contact in the restroom was him being shoved by Patterson, but later said he remembered being punched.

Defense attorney Tom Zena said during cross-examination the accuser testified the first time that he was struck by only Patterson, and asked the accuser how long afterwards he changed his story and said Dogoda was the one who assaulted him.

“I don’t know when, but I remember when I saw the social media post, I recognized him (Dogoda), like I said … everything slowly began coming back to me,” he said.

He agreed that part of his first statement to police was incorrect.

The first defense witness Wednesday was John Michaels, 22, who was asked to identify himself in surveillance video from Double Bogey’s that shows much of the movement of the accuser and defendants in the hallway outside of the men’s room.

Dogoda was among the defense witnesses, saying he got to Double Bogey’s about 2 a.m. with Patterson and went to the men’s room about 2:15 a.m. with Patterson.

Dogoda said he did not know the accuser, who came into the restroom after they did and went to an area to the left of Dogoda and Patterson. He said he heard aggressive remarks coming from the accuser and saw that the accuser and Patterson were “staring at each other.”

The accuser started verbally assaulting Patterson, mentioning the October incident in downtown Youngstown and telling Patterson he was going to kill him. During that time, Gearhart told the accuser to “chill out,” Dogoda said.

The accuser and Patterson then pushed each other, and the accuser grabbed Patterson’s sweatshirt and pulled it up around Patterson’s head.

Dogoda said he tried to pull them apart, but was not able to do so. Then Patterson punched the accuser in the head. The accuser “then immediately let go of his shirt, spun around a bit and fell face-first onto the floor.”

He said he “grabbed (Patterson) and took him out of the restroom.” He said he never punched the accuser.

Under cross-examination by Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor Steve Maszckak, Dogoda agreed that Collins and Gearhart entered the restroom “immediately after” the accuser entered.

Testimony indicated that Patterson and Dogoda are both mixed martial arts fighters. The accused said he played high school and college football.