Court Reverses Domestic Assault Case Decision

A Phoenixville man’s conviction for aggravated assault should not have been reversed by the Court of Common Pleas judge, according to a decision by the Pennsylvania Superior Court.

Upholding the conviction means that Michael Ferko faces a possible 25-30 year sentence supported by the state’s three strikes law, according to the Daily Local News.

Ferko was arrested in January 2013 after the victim called Phoenixville police while he attacked her at his Bridge Street apartment. The woman told police that Ferko assaulted and threatened to kill her, and he was arrested on assault charges.

In December 2013, a jury found Ferko guilty of aggravated assault, attempt to cause bodily injury, plus two counts of simple assault. However, Senior Judge Ronald Nagle granted the defense’s motion to reverse the aggravated assault conviction, the most serious charge.

According to the opinion authored by Superior Court Judge Paula Francisco Ott, Nagle erred when granted the motion because his ruling placed Ferko in a favorable light, when judicial process requires post--conviction judgments made with the commonwealth in the favorable light.

Nagle’s agreed with the defense’s argument that Ferko did not have a weapon when he made his threats and that the argument lasted long enough to present Ferko with enough opportunities to follow through on the threat, yet he did not kill the victim. The court says those factors were irrelevant based on a neighbor’s eyewitness account of peeking through the hinge of the front door and seeing Ferko choke and punch the victim in the face while making the threats.

“Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the commonwealth,” Ott writes, “the testimony reveals that Ferko threatened to kill the victim, while he slapped, punched, and choked her over a prolonged period of time. While Ferko did not use any weapon during the assault, the record reveals that he was much larger than the victim, and that he continued to assault the victim, on and off, until the police finally arrived.”

According to the Daily Local News, Ferko previously has been convicted twice for violently attacking women, supporting the District Attorney’s office’s move to invoke the three strikes law at sentencing.