Iowa City teen who stabbed 3 people in large fight pleaded to lesser charges

IOWA CITY — An Iowa City teen who participated in a large fight, stabbing three people outside a bar in 2023, pleaded Wednesday to lesser charges and plans to ask for a deferred judgment.

Christopher Torres, then 17, originally charged with three felony counts of willful injury, pleaded to three charges of assault with a dangerous weapon and unlawful assembly, all aggravated misdemeanors.

Torres, now 19, faces up to two years in prison for each charge. The prosecution will recommend running them consecutively but then suspending those for probation, according to the plea agreement.

The defense will ask the court for probation and a deferred judgment.

Torres joined in a large fight of 10 or more people outside of Bardot, 347 S. Gilbert St., about 1:55 a.m. on May 6, 2023, according to a criminal complaint.

During the fight he had a knife and stabbed three people, the complaint stated. One victim had a slash across his face and abdomen and stab wounds in his armpit and back. The second victim was stabbed in the torso, armpit, neck and back. The back injury chipped off a piece of his spine. The third victim was stabbed in the armpit and back, according to the complaint.

The three victims were taken to the hospital.

When police interviewed Torres days after the stabbing, he was wearing the same shoes he wore during the fight, which were “bloody,” and he admitted to using a knife during the fight, the complaint stated.

A search warrant of his cellphone revealed messages between himself and his girlfriend in which he bragged about assaulting more than one person, and said the victims got to “taste the knife,” and “got wht (sic) they was looking for.”

Two other men — Victor A. Torres Molina, now 30, and Lake M. Newton, of West Liberty, now 23, — also were convicted in the stabbing incident. Both pleaded and were granted probation and deferred judgments.

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