Funk guilty of aggravated assault in dog custody dispute

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This article was published 12/06/2024 (340 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Darcy Funk, 26, was found guilty of aggravated assault in a Steinbach courtroom May 31. The dispute was over the custody of Ozzy the dog.

Funk’s brother Dallas is a co-accused and has yet to have his day in court after his case was adjourned due to late disclosure from the crown prosecutor.

The victim was the 65-year-old father of Funk’s ex-girlfriend, who received serious injuries after being kicked in the ribs and struck in the head with a bat at his home in the RM of Ste Anne on Jan. 15, 2023. He was brought to Ste Anne hospital by his wife and then Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg by ambulance where he was found to have two broken ribs, a collapsed lung, cuts to his head, and a concussion.

Sentencing is expected to be scheduled on Sept. 5 after a Gladue report on the effects of Funk’s Indigenous history is included in a pre-sentence report. The report was requested by a defence lawyer over the phone. No defence lawyer made the drive out for Funk, who was in court to hear the verdict. The maximum sentence is 14 years in prison.

Judge Murray Thompson reached the guilty verdict after a March 15 trial for Funk. The same judge also sentenced Funk’s father, Gerald Funk, March 22 for obstructing police the same day of the assault when they sought out his sons. He received a $350 fine.

Judge Thompson laid out the series of events during his judgement last Friday.

Funk had been texting his estranged girlfriend. Her father saw the texts and warned Funk to not come to their property. The father admitted in court that he had a longstanding feud with Funk and wanted him out of his 26-year-old daughter’s life. Court heard she had been dating Funk for seven years and broke up that day.

Funk and his brother drove over in their truck to speak to the girlfriend and claim Ozzy the dog, parking their vehicle facing outward to make a faster getaway by the judge’s interpretation.

The father expected trouble and placed his baseball bat just inside the door of his home as he went out onto his deck. He told Funk they were trespassing and prevented him from entering the home.

Violence then broke out on the deck.

At first, it was between Funk and the father. The father admitted to throwing the first punch after Funk walked by him calmly, saying “Hey Guy, how’s it going?”

The judge said this honesty added to the father’s credibility as a witness.

The victim’s coat then went over his head as he went down, and he put his arms around his head to protect himself. Funk called his brother Dallas over for help. Despite not seeing who was kicking him, the victim could tell it was both brothers as he was kicked repeatedly on both sides.

“When asked if it could have been Dallas kicking him on both sides of his ribs, he answered, ‘If he was like a Bruce Lee magician,’ referring to the karate cinema master,” described Judge Thompson.

The judge explained how Funk could be considered liable for his brother’s bat attack if he aided in the commission of the crime or knew the crime could be a consequence of their common purpose actions. The judge concluded the brothers had the common intent to take Ozzy the dog by force if necessary.

Then, as the judge described, it quickly escalated with Dallas Funk’s use of the baseball bat after he grabbed it from the girlfriend’s hands.

The victim described looking up and seeing his aluminum bat coming at his face like a spear, making a ping sound as it struck his head twice.

He unsuccessfully tried using Funk as a human shield against his brother Dallas. Funk did tell his brother to stop after he saw the victim start to bleed, as described by the victim himself, which the judge said can be mitigating for Funk’s sentence but does not make him innocent of the assault.

“When it ended, Dallas put him in a headlock. Dallas told him, ‘Quit moving or else I will put you to sleep,’” described Judge Thompson.

The girlfriend and her mother also witnessed most of the attack after hearing a bang on the wall and seeing the brothers kicking the victim, which is when the girlfriend grabbed and quickly lost the bat after trying to swing it at Dallas. The police were not called until the father and mother got to Ste Anne hospital.