In lawsuit, sister of state politician's son recalls evening of stabbing

The sister of a former Hocking College student who's been sued over an alleged stabbing testified that her brother provided her few details about the incident the night it happened.

"œI believe Brandon just said, 'Tiffany, I was in a fight. I need you to come to my apartment now,'" testified Tiffany O'Neill in a legal deposition taken in May. Both lived in Athens.

Brandon O'Neill, son of former judge and congressional candidate William O'Neill, was sued in January 2008 in Athens County Common Pleas Court.

The suit, by OU student Donald D. Miller III, claims O'Neill stabbed him three times in a fight outside OU's Delta Upsilon fraternity in January 2007. Miller, who suffered a lacerated liver, has asked for more than $1 million in damages.

No criminal charges were filed, though the case was submitted to a grand jury.

William O'Neill, a former appellate judge, ran as a Democrat last November for Ohio's 14th District U.S. House seat (including Cuyahoga County), but lost to Republican Steven LaTourette.

Tiffany O'Neill was attending Ohio University when the alleged stabbing occurred, and spoke with her brother after the incident. She was deposed at her home in Chicago.

She testified that when her brother called her to his apartment, he mentioned a fight, but said nothing about a stabbing.

She said Brandon told her that after he and a friend attended a fraternity event (they were not members), "around 30-ish gentlemen" followed them out of the house in a menacing fashion.

O'Neill testified that her brother indicated there was some type of incident at the party, but did not give details.

"He said that he was trying to leave and he was being followed and pursued in, you know, a fighting manner, and into an alley, and they got in a fight, and he ran away after that incident happened, and that's when he called me," she said.

According to police reports, Brandon O'Neill told officers that the fraternity members "all tried to beat our asses, and we ran."

Miller reportedly claimed that at the party, O'Neill picked up a beer keg and began pushing people around with it. Miller claimed O'Neill dropped the keg and left the scene, but came back later to confront Miller, which is when the alleged stabbing occurred.

Asked whether her brother and his friend were intoxicated, O'Neill testified, "I don't know. They were not belligerent or anything of that nature. They were very upset emotionally, and I don't know how much they had drank."

She testified that both men had marks on their face as though they had been hit.

She acknowledged calling William O'Neill and discussing what to do.

"After we spoke with our father, because there was so much confusion of who did what and people saying things that may have happened, my brother and my father and I decided that we should go to the police station to try to eliminate confusion on our part," she testified.

In comments to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, William O'Neill said he did not attempt to use his influence to protect his son.

His congressional campaign put out a statement acknowledging that he called police hours after the alleged stabbing, telling them Brandon had been involved in a fight and someone had been seriously hurt. He also said he advised his son to go to the police.

Regarding the knife Brandon O'Neill may have used in the stabbing, his sister testified that he told her "that he had it because he was feeling very threatened, and he took it out to try to just deter the situation and get people away from him, and that was the extent of what he told me." She added that Brandon never told her he stabbed Miller.

Asked to describe the knife, she replied, "I want to say it was not very large. I would describe it maybe like a Swiss Army knife, I think, but... I didn't touch it or look at it very closely."

"Has Brandon ever indicated what started this fight?" asked Miller's attorney, Russell Flickinger.

"No," replied O'Neill. "There was a lot of confusion in that. I have never heard a specific, anything of that nature... I don't know how it started, and I don't even know if Brandon knows."

A trial is scheduled in the lawsuit for next January.