FALL RIVER - A North Attleboro man has been sentenced to serve three to five years in state prison for stabbing a sober home resident in town nearly two years ago.
Our partners at The Sun Chronicle reported in Wednesday’s edition Justin Perez, 27, plead guilty and was sentenced September 25 in Fall River Superior Court, the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office said Tuesday.
He was sentenced to prison for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury and must serve two years of supervised probation for intimidation of a witness, the DA’s office said.
Perez and the 58-year-old male victim lived in separate sober homes at 174 and 180 North Washington St.
“Although the victim and defendant resided in adjacent properties, the two had previously interacted,” Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Sow told the newspaper.
Sober home residents told authorities Perez appeared in the early evening hours of Dec. 2, 2023 in a common area with a knife, a cut on his arm and seemed to be under the effects of some type of drug, Sowa said
“The defendant was acting and speaking strangely,” she said.
The victim, who didn’t interact with Perez, left the home on foot and went toward North Washington Street, intending to walk to a nearby convenience store
Perez pursued the victim on foot, surveillance video showed.
The victim told police that, while on a sidewalk, he could hear footsteps behind him and then felt a punch to his back.
When the victim turned around, he saw an individual who matched the description of the defendant, Sowa said.
The victim then collapsed inside the convenience store, suffering from serious injuries from a stab wound to his back.
Perez fled back to the sober home and was seen on camera in a common area, hiding the knife in a gas grill where it was later found by police, Sowa said.
He reportedly told other residents not to call 911.
“This was a senseless act of violence committed by the defendant who was living in a sober house yet acting in an altered state of mind apparently fuelded by drug use,” District Attorney Thomas Quinn said.
