MIAMI — A previous federal prosecutor included in the early prosecution of a January 6 defendant was arrested in the stabbing of a driver on a Florida freeway right after a crash very last 7 days, authorities say, and new movie shows a confrontation with a Excellent Samaritan who tried using to intervene.
Tampa resident Ahmed Gahaf mentioned the incident unfolded just after he stopped to support an incapacitated driver who appeared to be suffering from a professional medical episode on the I-275 southbound on September 26.
When the driver woke up, he accelerated forward, strike Gahaf’s auto and though trying to drive all over Gahaf’s car or truck, he collided with a next automobile, according to the Florida Freeway Patrol.
Patrick Scruggs, a 39-calendar year-outdated previous federal prosecutor, was within the 2nd car that was strike, according to highway patrol. Gahaf told CNN that Scruggs stopped, bought out of his automobile and went up to the vehicle that experienced hit him.
Scruggs then shattered the driver’s facet window and attacked the driver inside of with a folding knife, leaving “a number of stabs and cuts in the arm,” according to a Florida Freeway Patrol arrest report.
Video clip taken by a witness and released by freeway patrol displays Gahaf on the cellular phone with a 911 operator and attempting to halt Scruggs. The online video appears to show Scruggs earning a swipe at Gahaf with his knife, which approximately hit him in the upper body, Gahaf mentioned.
“I’m wondering he’s coming to enable, you know, he’s coming to help, but he will come in like he by now has ideas,” Gahaf informed CNN Sunday. “I came in close to him to try out to explain to him stop… and he came in near to me, like one foot absent from me, from my upper body with the knife. And he explained ‘you much too? You want to get rid of me?’ I backed from him and was continue to with 911 and he stored going to stab him (the driver).”
Scruggs is now going through felony costs of armed burglary, aggravated assault and aggravated battery with a fatal weapon, according to an arrest affidavit.
John Nohlgren, Scruggs’ lawyer, mentioned his client’s vocation as a federal prosecutor in an e-mail to CNN. He urges the public to “retain an open up thoughts” declaring his consumer has no prior prison background.
“This was a chaotic scenario involving a number of crashes induced by only a person individual on just one of our area’s busiest bridges. That man or woman was not Mr. Scruggs. There is a great deal far more to this incident than what is getting noted and we are diligently doing work to bring to mild the complete info of what occurred,” wrote Nohlgren.
Gahaf claimed he was shocked when he realized the knife-wielding man he confronted was a former federal prosecutor.
“I can’t believe it, you know, that is what push(s) me crazy. He is familiar with the regulation,” he stated.
Jail records demonstrate Scruggs was unveiled 10 several hours soon after he was first booked at the Pinellas County Jail on a $65,000 bond.
Scruggs put in a ten years at the Middle District of Florida’s US attorney’s office in Tampa as senior litigation counsel, in accordance to his LinkedIn profile. This summertime he joined a non-public legislation business in Atlanta.
He was concerned in the early prosecution of January 6 defendant Adam Johnson, regarded as “lectern person,” for building off with Speaker of the Household Nancy Pelosi’s lectern.
Barnes & Thornburg told CNN in an electronic mail that Scruggs is no extended employed at its law company.
