By Rick Brown
News Tribune

It took a Cole County jury 12 with assault for their alleged in- minutes to find a Jefferson City man guilty of assaulting a woman an attempt to abort her unborn child.

Richard O. Brinkmann, 21 was convicted Tuesday in Cole County Circuit Court on two counts of first-degree assault. Circuit Judge Thomas J. III said he in ends to sentence Brinkmann to 20 years.

The verdict concluded a one-day that trail in which the victim testified her Oak Street home on Nov. 20. "They sprayed me with Mace," Naomi Baum testified her and used syringes to inject fluid

into her arm and stomach. A Highway Patrol laboratory expert testified the fluid contained a mix-ture of cocaine and anti-freeze.

After he was arrested the next day, Brinkmann confessed that he held the victim while Mikel Brice beat her said Det. Bob Backers of the Jefferson Police Department.

Brice, 17, and Sandra M. Kenney 38, also have been charged with assault for their alleged involvement in the attack on the victim.

Authorities said Kenney was married to the father of Baum’s unborn child. The prosecution

claimed Kenney asked Brinkmann and Brice to attack the victim so the child would be aborted. The

two men allegedly waited until the father, who was living with Baum, left before entering the home.

"All I remember is being choked, and I passed out," said Baum of the last thing she could recall about the attack.

Three other prosecution witnesses testified that Brinkmann talked about being involved in the attack hours after it occurred.

The defense rested without calling any witnesses. In his closing argument, Brinkmann attorney, public defender Robert Fleming, urged the jury to doubt the statements of police and witnesses who claimed they heard Brinkmann bragging about committing the assault.

"The question is what did Richard Brinkmann have to do with it, not what others say he had to do with it," said Fleming. He also tried to convince the jury that the victim’s injuries were not serious enough to warrant a first-degree assault charge. She was treated at a local hospital and released after two days in intensive care. Her baby was born in March without any apparent problems. During his closing argument, Tackett told the jury it didn’t matter whether Brinkmann was the masked man who held her down or the one who assaulted her. Either action fit the elements of the felony charges, he said.

Tackett also suggested that the jury could send a message against crime by returning a guilty verdict in five to 10 minutes.

The panel deliberated for 12 minutes before convicting the defendant.

Judge Brown indicated he will formally sentence Brinkmann July. Brice and Kenney await further action in their felony cases.

Janet A. Lene, 26, recently pleaded guilty to a burglary charge for allegedly driving Brice and Brinkmann to the victim's home in the 1100 block of Oak Street.