Opening statements were heard Tuesday in Clark County Superior Court in the attempted murder trial of a Baltimore man accused of trying to strangle his cousin’s husband, a prominent psychiatrist.
While visiting his cousin last April, Ibn Aquil, 26, allegedly choked and beat the woman’s husband, Barry Maletzky, at the couple’s house in Hockinson.
The defense alleges Aquil, who had been at a party the night before, was drugged and has no memory of the crime. The prosecution contends several eyewitnesses saw Aquil attack Maletzky.
Deputy Prosecutor Tony Golik said Maletzky, now 68, was choked nearly to death and rushed to Southwest Washington Medical Center, where he was treated for neck injuries and bruising to the left side of his face.
The attack occurred just before 7 a.m. April 13, 2009, at the victim’s 8,000-square-foot home on Northeast 193rd Street. Maletzky was sleeping on the couch in the family room when he woke to someone choking him. He only glimpsed his assailant before he fell unconscious, Golik said.
Several other relatives in the house told sheriff’s deputies Aquil was the attacker and that he had fled, jumping in the home’s outdoor swimming pool before crawling on the roof of a neighbor’s home, Golik said. He eventually surrendered to deputies.
Golik did not offer a motive for the crime.
“He (Maletzky) didn’t anticipate any problems with the defendant” when he came from Baltimore to stay with the couple, he said.
In her opening statement, defense attorney Suzan Clark said her client had attended a party with his cousin and drank several shots of vodka, including a drink that had unknown flecks of material in it. He felt strange and believed he had been drugged.
After arriving home around 6 a.m., he doesn’t recall what happened next.
“Chaos breaks out and then everybody is accusing him of attacking Mr. Maletzky,” Clark said, noting a friend who also matched the description of the attacker was at the home, too.
Maletzky is well-known in the Vancouver-Portland metro area for being an expert witness for defense attorneys at trial, often in insanity cases.
Though he has testified throughout the United States, his license was revoked in at least one state for reportedly overstating his credentials.
He is now estranged from his 32-year-old wife.
Aquil is charged with second-degree attempted murder and first-degree assault. His trial in Judge Rich Melnick’s courtroom should conclude Thursday.
