Teen pleads guilty in Bluffton beating case; will testify against co-defendants

One of the Bluffton teens charged in the attack on two men as they grilled steaks in a Bluffton backyard in October 2008 pleaded guilty to burglary Friday and agreed to testify against his two co-defendants.

Kuwan A. Fields, who was 18 at the time of the attack, was arrested Nov. 25, 2008. He and two others, Harry C. Battle and Theophilus D. Hamilton, who were then 16, are charged in the Oct. 30, 2008, attack on Brian Lanese, then 33, and his friend Jeffery Wooten, then 24.

Fields pled guilty to a charge of second-degree burglary. He also was charged with simple assault, a magistrate-level offense, in beating Wooten, who suffered minor injuries in the attack.

A charge of criminal conspiracy in connection with the incident -- as well as prior charges of possession of crack cocaine with intent to distribute and possession of crack cocaine within a half-mile of a school -- will be dropped, contingent on Fields' testimony against Battle and Hamilton, assistant solicitor Alec Robinson said Friday.

In exchange for that testimony, Robinson recommended a sentence cap of six years for Fields on the burglary charge, which could carry a sentence of as many as 15 years.

Fields will be sentenced after the trials for Battle and Hamilton, Robinson said. Their trials have not been scheduled, he said

Hamilton and Battle, who were charged as adults, face charges of criminal conspiracy and assault and battery with intent to kill in Lanese's beating. Both were released on bond from the Beaufort County Detention Center following their arrests.

Fields will remain in the Beaufort County Detention Center without bond.

Robinson told Judge Thomas W. Cooper on Friday that the teens were burglarizing Lanese's backyard shed when one of the defendants "abruptly charged Lanese" while wearing a "Scream" mask.

Robinson and Fields, who said he didn't know Lanese at the time of the attack, said Battle used the stock of a pellet gun to beat Lanese.

A baseball cap containing Fields' DNA was found at the scene, Robinson said. When authorities confronted him about the attack, Fields confessed to his involvement and implicated the other defendants.

Fields' parents and Lanese's wife and her mother attended Friday's hearing.

Lanese spent nearly a month in Savannah's Memorial University Medical Center. He suffered serious head trauma and internal bleeding, underwent multiple surgeries and had been in a medically induced coma, spending several weeks in the intensive care unit.