Jury Finds Man Guilty of Beating Teenager at West Orange McDonald's

It took an Essex County jury an hour-and-a-half to convict a Newark man Monday of aggravated assault and weapons charges after attacking a 17-year-old Plainfield boy at a West Orange McDonald's in November 2008.

Essex County Assistant Prosecutor Dawn C. Scott said Wordell Phelps, 37, came to the restaurant on Northfield Avenue and beat the boy, who was a McDonald's worker, with a baseball bat. Prosecutors said Phelps was outraged because the boy and Phelps's daughter, who also was employed at the McDonald's, got into a dispute.

Phelps attacked the boy in the restaurant's parking lot. During the three-day trial, jurors heard how Phelps struck the teenager in the head with the bat, knocked him to the ground and then stomped and beat him. The boy, whose identity is not being released because of his age, sustained a brain hemorrhage that required a three-day stay in Saint Barnabas Hospital.

"Parents cannot resort to violence to resolve teenage disputes," said Scott. "I am pleased with the verdict because it is clear the jurors exercised their common sense and reached a fair decision."

Sentencing is scheduled for March 4 before New Jersey Superior Court Judge Rachel Davidson. Because of previous drug-related convictions, Phelps faces 13 years in prison, according to Katherine Carter, spokeswoman for the Essex County Prosecutor's Office.

— Joshua Wilwohl