Bellport Man Found Guilty After Striking Sober House Resident In Head With Baseball Bat: SCDA

BELLPORT, NY — A Bellport man was found guilty after striking a resident of a sober house in the head with a baseball bat, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office announced on Friday.

The Suffolk County DA Raymond A. Tierney said that Reginald Sonds, 60, of Bellport, was found guilty on April 23 after a second-degree assault (a Class D violent felony), after a bench trial heard before Acting Supreme Court Justice Anthony S. Senft, Jr.

Sonds faces up to seven years in prison and is due back in court for sentencing on June 11, 2026, SCDA said.

"The victim was living in a sober house, a place meant to offer safety and stability, when this defendant attacked him with a metal bat and left him bleeding with a serious head wound," DA Tierney said.

On September 11, 2022, Suffolk County police responded to a 911 call for a reported assault at a Bellport sober house, the SCDA's office said. Officers found a man bleeding with a large laceration on the left side of his forehead, and he was transported to Long Island Community Hospital for treatment, the SCDA's office said.

According to surveillance footage, Sonds and the man interacted inside the residence shortly before the man returned to his bedroom, the SCDA's office said. The footage depicted Sonds going to his own bedroom on the opposite side of the residence, retrieving a metal bat, and entering the man's room, when he began to swing the bat, the SCDA's office said. Sonds then went back to his room and tried to hide the bat between his roommate's bed and the wall, the SCDA's office said.

The SCDA's office said that Sonds is being represented by Luigi Belcastro, Esq, the case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Patrick J. Mullen and Patrick Fedun of the Major Crime Bureau, and the investigation was conducted by Detective Steven Capparelli of the Suffolk County Police Department’s Fifth Squad, with assistance from District Attorney Detective Investigator Robert Fitchett, Research Analyst Lisa Lombardo, and Discovery Expeditor Taylor Steele.