Resident accused of attack at group home enters NGI plea

A resident of a Saukville group home accused of attacking another resident of the home because he was making too much noise while playing video games pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease last week to the charges he faces in Ozaukee County Circuit Court.

Logan E. Holzer entered his plea after being bound over for trial by Judge Sandy Williams on a felony charge of strangulation and suffocation and misdemeanor counts of battery and disorderly conduct during a July 29 preliminary hearing.

Court records indicate Holzer, 24, who was released from jail in lieu of $500 bail, now lives at a group home in West Bend.

According to a criminal complaint, Saukville police officer Nicholas Oszuscik was called to Riverwood group home by an employee of the facility at 12:30 a.m. Friday, July 24, and spoke with a man who said he was playing video games when Holzer came into his bedroom and confronted him about making noise.

The man said Holzer knocked his Play Station console off a nightstand, then put his hands around his neck and choked him, adding he scratched Holzer’s face while he was choking him, the complaint states

Holzer admitted to choking the man. An employee of the group home said that after she saw Holzer choking the man in his bedroom, she separated the two, then called 911, according to the complaint.

During the July 29 court hearing, Holzer pleaded not guilty as well as not guilty by reason of mental disease, initiating a two-part process.

First, the court must determine if Holzer committed the crimes he is accused of.

If he is guilty, the question for the court  is whether he lacked capacity to understand the wrongfulness of his acts at the time he committed them and thus is not responsible for them.

A person who is found not guilty by reason of mental disease is committed to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services for a period of time determined by a judge rather than sentenced to jail or prison and can be supervised in the community or in an institution.

Williams has ordered the Department of Health Services to prepare a psychiatric evaluation of Holzer and scheduled an Oct. 29 court hearing to review it

Strangulation and suffocation is punishable by a maximum three years in prison and three years of extended supervision.