ST. PAUL, Minn. – A Rochester man convicted of assaulting a nursing home resident has lost his appeal.
38-year-old Cosmas Oseko Nyatwori was found guilty of 5th degree assault and sentenced to 30 days in jail and one year of supervised probation. A woman testified that when she visited her father at Samaritan Bethany Home on February 11, 2016, she saw Nyatwori forcefully pull her father back into his wheelchair when he tried to stand up and then punch her father three to five times in the upper shoulders and head area.
Nyatwori challenged his conviction, arguing there was no other evidence against him besides the woman’s testimony. Nyatwori says the woman was looking at them from behind from 60 to 70 feet away and could have easily mistaken him guiding her father back into his wheelchair as an assault.
The Minnesota Court of Appeals has rejected Nyatwori’s appeal, finding that he challenged the woman’s credibility during his two-day trial and the District Court was within its rights to convict him based only on that testimony.
