YORK — Two brothers are accused of seriously injuring a tenant in their grandfather’s apartment, allegedly attacking the man with machetes, metal pipes and a baseball bat, according to York police.
Jordan Mantilla, 20, and Eric Mantilla Jr., 21, are both charged with aggravated assault, the criminal complaint say. They are suspected of attacking Ricky Sease, 50, who was a tenant at 120 E. South Street. The alleged attack occurred on the morning of August 24.
York police say they were dispatched to the apartment building for the report of a fight in progress. The report said multiple people were fighting, and that one subject was armed with a baseball bat. When police arrived at the scene, they found no one fighting, but did find fresh blood on the ground and a broken window on the first floor with pools of blood on the ledge.
Officers checked inside the building, where a woman on the second floor told them a victim on the third floor needed help.
Police checked the third floor and found the victim, Sease, lying on a blood-covered floor. The victim was badly injured and struggling to speak, police say. He had a large cut and bruise on the back of his head and multiple cuts on his arms. EMTs called to the scene said his injuries were potentially life-threatening, and rushed him to an area hospital for treatment.
After securing the scene, police checked the rest of the residence and found blood at several locations on multiple floors. They also discovered metal pipes lying on the floor in the area where they found the victim, along with a machete propped on the wall nearby. They also found that several doors on the first and second floor were forced open and windows were broken.
Detectives interviewed Sease at the hospital, where he told them he rented a room in the building from a man he knew as “Junior,” a tenant on the first floor and owner of the property. He told police that Junior had left the property to care for his mother in Florida, and that he’d made an arrangement with Sease to pay rent to Junior’s grandsons, the Mantillas.
But the Mantillas allegedly became angry with Sease, after Sease informed Junior that they’d moved another tenant into the building without their grandfather’s knowledge. They also allegedly threatened Sease several times, and later blamed him for summoning police to the apartment for another incident, which resulted in the police confiscating $3,800 worth of drugs.
Sease told police that on the day of the attack, he was standing in the vestibule of his building when Eric Mantilla Jr. approached and punched him in the side of the head, knocking him backward. He was then allegedly charged by Jordan Mantilla and another man, and said he grabbed Eric Mantilla Jr. to use him as a human shield to protect him from punches.
According to Sease, the Mantillas and the other man used “anything they could” to hit him, including metal pipes and a machete. The attack eventually ended, and Sease, who was badly injured, managed to flee inside the building, where he crawled up the steps to the third floor. He said once he reached the third-floor hallway, he heard glass breaking and the sound of doors being kicked open on the floors below, and suspected his attackers were trying to find him. He told police he asked a tenant on the third floor for help, but the tenant refused and closed the door on him.
Sease told police that Jordan Mantilla allegedly found him and struck again, allegedly hitting him with metal poles and attempting to throw him down the stairs, but Sease prevented that by grabbing and holding onto Jordan Mantilla.
Sease said the attack ended when they heard voices they suspected were police arriving on the scene.
The Mantilla brothers are still at large, police say.
