Jury splits verdict in St. Paul assault case

In the early morning hours of Sept. 17, an anonymous male caller told a 911 operator to send help -- another man was fighting with his girlfriend. Six minutes later, the caller called 911 again to say, "He's killing her up there," prosecutor Dave Pinto told a jury in Ramsey County District Court on Friday.

When St. Paul police arrived at the house in the 100 block of Douglas Street, just off W. 7th Street, they found Diallo D. Coleman straddling Jaime Platt's stomach and legs with his hands wrapped around her neck. Platt's hands were tightly bound behind her back with duct tape. Her ankles were taped together, too.

On Friday night, Coleman, 31, of St. Paul, was found not guilty of second-degree attempted murder but guilty on charges of false imprisonment and domestic assault by strangulation. The jury reached its verdict at about 9:30 p.m. after about nine hours of deliberation.

As the verdict was announced, Coleman sobbed, laid his head on the table, then mouthed to jurors, "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

The victim, clearly upset by the not-guilty portion of the verdict, confronted prosecutors outside the courtroom, saying, "Who screwed up?"

In his closing argument, Pinto recounted the evidence jurors have seen and heard this week:

Officers arrived at the house, which was occupied by several people, at 12:42 a.m. and heard a woman screaming. As they headed upstairs, the screaming stopped and they heard a struggle and a woman saying, "Stop it! You're killing me! Get off me!"

Officers had to kick Coleman four times before he let go, Pinto said.

"The victim was gasping for air. ... She was clinging to the officer," Pinto said. The defendant was belligerent, yelling and screaming. Both were intoxicated, he said, and had argued before the fight turned physical.

Pinto said Coleman's actions when he duct-taped Platt's hands and ankles and strangled her proved his intent to kill her. He had asked the jury for a guilty verdict on all three charges.

Defense attorney Nicole Kubista, however, said officers only saw what happened after they arrived, not before.

Kubista stood with her hand on Coleman's shoulder as she told the jury that he "used duct tape to restrain Jamie Platt, and for that you should find him guilty of false imprisonment." But, she said, he was not guilty of domestic assault by strangulation or attempted murder.

She was hitting. She kicked a hole in a door and kneed a hole in the wall. She was "laughing one minute and crying the next," Kubista said. Coleman tried more than once to get her into their room.

Yes, Platt was screaming when officers arrived, Kubista said, but it wasn't muffled or labored as if she was being strangled. Her neck bore no indentation from the chain she was wearing and there were no bruises, scratches or redness on her face and neck.

Said Kubista: "Something happened that night," she said. "But that something wasn't attempted murder ... [or] strangulation."

Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 14 before District Court Judge Paulette Flynn.