Damage to victim's brain permanent

By Ray Huard
Source: UNION-TRIBUNE

A Lakeside man labeled a white supremacist by police was sentenced to 17 years in prison yesterday for beating a black man and someone he thought was gay in separate hate crimes at bars.

Timothy Michael Caban, 40, pleaded guilty in January to battery with serious bodily injury and personally inflicting great bodily injury.

The first attack, in October 2006, injured Eric Socorro Brunk on the patio of the 67 Bar and Grill in Lakeside.

In July 2007, Caban struck Sylvester Wilson outside Don's Cocktail Lounge in Lakeside. Wilson, who is black, suffered permanent brain damage, and doctors testified at an earlier hearing that he would never fully recover.

Wilson is paralyzed on one side, can barely speak and has trouble remembering and comprehending what is going on around him, his brother Ronald Wilson said in El Cajon Superior Court.

“I don't know if he (Caban) really realizes what he has done,” Ronald Wilson said. “I just hope there is some kind of lesson in this for him other than being in jail and wasting his life away.”



Advertisement Witnesses told investigators that Caban sucker-punched Wilson outside the back door of the bar July 8, 2007, after a bartender stopped serving Caban and his companions and they became rowdy.
As Caban left the bar, he took off his T-shirt to reveal a swastika tattoo across his shoulder and chest, then punched Wilson unprovoked with an uppercut, knocking him down, witnesses said. Wilson hit his head on the pavement and was bleeding from his ears and head when paramedics arrived minutes later.

On Oct. 10, 2006, Caban beat Brunk to the ground on the patio of the 67 Bar and Grill after asking Brunk and a friend, “Are you guys gay?”

Brunk was sitting with his wife and friend at the time, Deputy District Attorney Leon Schorr has said.

Brunk suffered a dislocated shoulder and facial cuts and bruises but has recovered, according to court records.

Caban has previous convictions dating to 1995 for crimes including battery, possession of drugs and domestic violence.