Apr 18, 2018 4 min read

An attorney representing former teacher and wrestling coach Timothy Mousetis, accused of attacking his in-laws at a South Strabane Township golf club late in 2016, said Tuesday he plans to show his client was acting in his own defense.

“I can tell you that what is important in this case is who struck who first,” Thomas Will told jurors hearing the case in Washington County Court.

Mousetis, 61 – a former champion wrestler, coach and retired Canon-McMillan High School teacher who lives in East Washington – faces charges of simple assault and disorderly conduct brought by South Strabane police soon after the Dec. 16, 2016, incident at The Golf Club of Washington.

A panel of nine women and three men will have to decide whether they agree with Will that Mousetis’ sister-in-law, Debra Abajace, and her husband, John, were aggressors that night. The prosecution contends they were victims in the events that unfolded about 9:20 p.m.

Assistant District Attorney John Friedmann said the evidence would support a guilty verdict.

The trial before Judge Valarie Costanzo is expected to last two days.

Friedmann’s first witness was Debra Abajace, whose sister is married to Mousetis. She was followed by John Abajace, himself a former head wrestling coach at Trinity High School and state high school wrestling champion.

The Abajaces testified they were having dinner at the club with a number of guests, including their great-niece, who was 9 at the time and playing in another room.

They said Mousetis, who had arrived shortly before the fight broke out, approached their table several times.

The first time, Debra Abajace said, “He came over to me, and he leaned over top of me, and he said, ‘Do you remember the good old days, when those two were the (expletive) (expletive)s?”

She said Mousetis was referring to her other sister and brother-in-law, who were eating with them.

They said he left and returned a few minutes later with more invective before a man from another table escorted him out.

Video of the fight that ensued when Mousetis returned a third time was played while John Abajace was on the stand. The footage shows Mousetis entering the restaurant from another part of the club as John Abajace, whose back was to the entrance, gets up from his seat and turns to confront him.

The two are shown jostling near the top of the video frame, which at times showed only part of what was happening, as club owner James Cameron stands between them.

Abajace denied hitting Mousetis, but said Mousetis accused him of doing so at the time. He insisted he tried to push the other man away but failed to make contact.

In the video, Mousetis appears to make what Friedmann called an “overhand motion.” Abajace testified Mousetis hit him with a bar glass.

For much of the rest of the video, a knot of people forms around the two men in an apparent attempt to separate them. Mousetis is shown hitting Abajace with uppercuts several more times.

The scrum winds up beside a wall, where Debra Abajace appears to strike or claw at Mousetis. It then appears Mousetis reaches back at her and slams her head into the wall three times.

Under cross-examination by Will, Debra Abajace said she was “reaching for his collar to pull him back from my husband” when she made the motion.

She admitted to making an obscene gesture toward Mousetis at some point that night. Will presented a photo showing her doing so.

She testified she was examined at an emergency room following the fight and given medication for severe headaches. Her husband said he needed stitches by his nose and in his lip. He was treated for a concussion.

Will also questioned the couple about what they said during a call Debra Abajace made to 911 and in statements they initially gave to police.

Among those details, he pointed out Debra Abajace said Mousetis slammed her head into the wall “five to six times” – instead of the three to which she testified – when she spoke to police a few days later.

He also pointed out John Abajace, when he spoke to police the next day, appeared unsure about whether Mousetis hit him with a glass.

The Abajaces testified they’d known Mousetis for years but had a falling out a few years prior to the incident.

Friedmann also called two South Strabane police officers and another relative who was there that night as witnesses before resting the prosecution’s case.

The Abajaces’ civil suit against Mousetis and the club is pending in the county court.