A jury found a Tamaqua man not guilty on all counts Tuesday morning in what was called a road rage case dating back to 2023.
The jury of eight women and four men believed the prosecution failed to produce evidence that Timothy Stahl, pointed a gun at and assaulted two bicyclists in an incident that unfolded on Tamaqua streets back on September 22, 2023. They deliberated for just an hour Tuesday morning after hearing a full day of testimony on Monday in Courtroom 3 at Schuylkill County Courthouse. The case was presided over by Schuylkill County Judge Bill Burke.
He was found not guilty on a single count of possessing an instrument of crime, a handgun, and two counts of simple assault, one for each bicyclist.
Stahl rejected separate offers from the Schuylkill County District Attorney’s Office for ARD and probation prior to this week’s trial.
Stahl testified that he was driving his mother, Frances, to a dinner at the Tamaqua Train Station Restaurant on the day of the incident. At the intersection of Hunter and Spruce streets, Stahl and his mother stopped behind two bicyclists, Brandon Aucker and his father-in-law, Edward Johnson.
Aucker testified that he and Johnson were stopped side-by-side at a red light on Hunter St., next to Pieracini’s Market, and wanted to turn left but there was a truck stopped at the same light coming in the opposite direction. Johnson pulled a little bit forward and head of Aucker, in anticipation of turning left but they were stalled waiting for the truck.
He then said he motioned to traffic behind him that he was making a left turn. At that time, he said, Stahl “laid on the horn” of his vehicle and drove up alongside of him, opened his door and made contact with Aucker’s bicycle and thigh.
Aucker then said Stahl turned right onto Spruce St. and down a hill. He pursued him on his bike to get a photo of his license plate. Johnson followed close behind. Traffic was a little slowed and they caught up to Stahl. And that’s when the second altercation happened.
Johnson confronted Stahl on Spruce St. Aucker said he pulled his iPhone from a pocket on his bicyclist’s outfit. Some of the confrontation was caught on video and jurors were shown that video but it didn’t show what the bicyclists claimed: that Stahl pulled a gun on them.
There was a gun involved in the incident, Stahl admitted that much in his testimony. He said he pulled a holstered handgun from the center console of his vehicle when he was stopped on Spruce St. He did so because he felt threatened by the bicyclists who had followed him.
Stahl testified that he thought the two cyclists were “chasing us” and that Johnson, during the Spruce St. confrontation was two feet from his vehicle’s window and yelling, “Get out of the car, motherf*****, I’m gonna kick your a**!”
“My mother said the other guy was reaching for something,” Stahl testified. He later added that they felt “trapped” and “chased.”
Refuting the claim that he pulled a gun and pointed it at Johnson, Stahl said the only thing that the gun was pointed at during the entire incident was his own leg.
“The firearm stayed between my legs,” he said.
That video Aucker recorded did show Johnson talking to passing motorists who were wondering what had just happened. It showed Johnson telling them that Stahl had pulled a gun on them.
Stahl testified, “He was pretending. He was trying to manufacture witnesses.”
Following the incident, both sides contacted police. Aucker and Johnson had police meet them near Pieracini’s Market while Stahl and his mother drove to the Tamaqua police station, where they were asked to write out statements.
In his testimony, Stahl was critical of the police investigation. He said he felt rushed into providing a statement and said it took three months for charges to be filed. Stahl said he first learned that he’d been charged by reading it in the newspaper.
During cross-examination by Assistant District Attorney Jen Foose, the prosecution attempted to highlight what she called inconsistencies between testimony Stahl was providing at trial and what he initially told police on the day of the incident.
For instance, at trial Stahl testified that Johnson flipped him off with both middle fingers and those two middle fingers “turned into two fists” but Foose asked why he hadn’t told police about Johnson raising fists at him.
Stahl said he wasn’t in a state of mind to remember every detail of the incident when he and his mother were writing their statements at the police station.
“I had more to say and wasn’t given the opportunity,” Stahl said.
Stahl was represented in this case by Kingston attorney Matthew Muckler.
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