Deep Ellum aggravated assault trial: Victim weeps on stand, faces intense cross-examination
DALLAS - L'Daijohnique Lee cried on the stand while watching cell phone video of her brutal encounter with Austin Shuffield in March 2019.
The video shows Shuffield knocking the phone out of Lee's hand, before she punches him. Shuffield responded by throwing five punches of his own.
"He was aggressive," Lee said while describing Shuffield's actions before the fight.
Lee says Shuffield beat on her car that was parked the wrong way on Elm Street, cursing at her to move.
She also claims that Shuffield told her he was calling the police because she was smoking cocaine, which she denies.
Lee testified she threatened to mace Shuffield, but that she didn't have mace and was trying to get him away from her car.
[ATTORNEY: "When he pulled out the gun did you see the gun?"]
"Yes," Lee responded.
That handgun was captured on the cell phone video recorded by a witness.
Lee said under oath that she saw the gun and was going to call police about it.
[ATTORNEY: "Do you remember that you didn't tell them about the gun that night?"]
"I thought I did," Lee said.
That night no one, Lee, nor Shuffield, nor witnesses, mentioned the gun to police.
[ATTORNEY: "The thing that you were calling to report you would agree you just forgot to mention once all the police arrived."]
"My head was hurting," Lee said.
[ATTORNEY: "Yes or no?"]
"Correct," Lee responded.
Deep Ellum aggravated assault trial underway more than 3 years after woman's brutal beating
Defense attorney Rebekah Perlstein pulled at Lee's testimony, suggesting she didn't tell police about the gun because she didn't see it.
Lee says she tried to get video of the gun with her own phone, but that's when Shuffield slapped the phone out of her hand.
[ATTORNEY: "When you were being beaten, did you know when the beating would stop?"]
"No," Lee replied.
[ATTORNEY: "Did you feel like you might get beat to death?"]
"Yes," Lee responded.
Perlstein said Lee could have made other choices that would have led to a different outcome, but chose to get out of her car and confront Shuffield.
The defense tried to damage her credibility with jurors pointing out she testified Thursday of hearing loss in her left ear, but that's not in any medical documentation.
[ATTORNEY: "How much money did you receive for this incident"]
"I don't recall," Lee said.
In court, it was revealed $16,000 came to Lee through a GoFundMe page set up shortly after the video went viral.
Prosecutors played the recording of a clean-shaven Austin Shuffield with his attorney being interviewed by a Dallas police detective several days after the altercation.
"She also informed me that she was going to call up her friend and her boys, and they were going to shoot me up," Shuffield said.
The detective who originally charged the case as a Class A misdemeanor, not a felony, also took the stand.
When the jury gets the case they will have to decide whether this is aggravated assault, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated assault serious bodily injury or something less than a felony.