Suspect in Moon Bar fight pleads no contest

By Eric Weslander     Nov 2, 2005

Jeremiah Creswell says he didn’t do it.

He says he never punched former Kansas University basketball player J.R. Giddens inside a local bar the night of an infamous brawl earlier this year. But in a hearing Tuesday in District Court, Creswell pleaded no contest to battering Giddens inside the bar, saying prosecutors had threatened him with more serious charges if he didn’t plead.

The more serious charges he could have faced? Injuring Giddens and four other men with a knife outside the bar, something Creswell says he did in self-defense, and only because he was attacked.

“It’s real frustrating,” he said. “I wish there would have been justice.”

Dist. Atty. Charles Branson, however, said his office never explicitly told Creswell to plead or face more severe charges.

“We informed him what he was charged with,” Branson said. “He had an opportunity to explain himself if he chose to. He didn’t plead his case with us. : I can only assume he’s afraid of his conscience.”

Creswell pleaded no contest to one count of misdemeanor battery. Judge Stephen Six ordered him to one year’s probation, which he will be allowed to serve in Johnson County.

Creswell, 24, slashed Giddens and four other men with a knife May 19 in the parking lot of the Moon Bar near Ninth and Iowa Streets – a fight eyewitnesses said happened after Giddens and a group of men jumped Creswell. As part of Creswell’s plea agreement, prosecutors agreed not to file additional charges against him related to the knife injuries, Creswell’s attorney, William Rork, said Tuesday

Giddens, 20, who has transferred to New Mexico, pleaded no contest Monday to battery and disorderly conduct and received a years’ probation.

Branson says Creswell punched Giddens inside the bar before bouncers kicked Creswell out.

“My understanding of what occurred was : that Mr. Giddens and another person were horseplaying around in another area of the bar, and Mr. Creswell came in and interjected himself into that horseplay and struck Mr. Giddens,” Branson said.

But Creswell says he never touched Giddens inside the bar. He claims he came to the bar around closing time and saw Giddens, who asked him what he was looking at and squared up as if he wanted to fight.

Branson said he had reason to believe Creswell and Giddens were under the influence of alcohol.

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