The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

DAYTON – On Sept. 9, Anthony John Nieto Sr., 56, entered a guilty plea to reduced charges stemming from a stabbing incident in Nov. of 2014. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison, with credit for time served.

Nieto was arrested on Nov. 8, 2014, after deputies were called to the alley behind Woody’s Bar and Grill, at 214 E. Main Street in Dayton, after reports of a group of people fighting. After deputies separated the group, witnesses reported that one man had been stabbed in the neck.

Tysen Beckner was taken to Dayton General Hospital with an approximately one-inch wound in his neck, near his ear. Beckner identified Nieto Sr. as his assailant.

Neighbors found a knife in the back of their pickup truck and reported it to deputies. Nieto admitted to owning the knife but did not admit to stabbing Beckner. He was arrested and has been held in Columbia County Jail on $250,000 bond, pending trial, until he changed his plea to guilty this month.

Nieto Sr. was originally charged with first degree assault, but pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of assault in the third degree – criminal negligence and a weapon, a Class C felony. The reduced charge has a standard maximum sentence of five years and/or a $10,000 fine.

Nieto admitted that he “assaulted Tysen Beckner by negligently waving a knife and accidentally stabbing him in the neck.”

Columbia County Superior Court Judge Scott Gallina imposed a below standard range sentence of 16 months, with credit for time served. Nieto is also required to have no contact with Beckner and may not enter the property known as “Woody’s” in Dayton.

Nieto is also responsible from $5465.80 in legal financial obligations. He is curently incarcerated at the Washington Correction Center in Shelton, Wash.