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South Boston man gets 22 years for biting off and swallowing another man's lower lip in a bar fight and for being bad seed in general

Robert O'Connor, 46, of South Boston was sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison for a 2012 racially tinged bar brawl in South Boston that left his primary opponent without a lower lip.

A Suffolk Superior Court jury convicted O'Connor in March for the 2012 fight at Croke Park in South Boston. A separate jury agreed with prosecutors last week that O'Connor is a habitual offender, which left him open to a lengthier sentence. Prosecutors had asked for 35 years due to O'Connor's record, which includes a conviction for beating up another inmate at Cedar Junction.

Judge Patrick Brady sentenced O’Connor to serve 20 years in prison on a mayhem charge and concurrent sentences of 10 years for violating the victim’s civil rights and 2 1/2 years for assault and battery, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports. Brady imposed an additional consecutive term of 2 1/2 years for committing an assault and battery on a second victim.

According to prosecutors, O'Connor stepped into the bar, also known as Whitey's, on West Broadway the night of Aug. 5, 2012, spoiling for a fight. He started in with a guy playing pool by calling him a racial slur.

O’Connor then began pushing a bar employee before pulling out a knife and holding it to the man’s leg, prosecutors sought to prove. The employee convinced O’Connor to put the knife away, but O’Connor continued to push and grab him. Using a pool stick, the employee attempted to get O’Connor out of the bar. A physical struggle ensued, during which the employee, assisted by the victim and a second employee, got O’Connor out of the bar.

Once outside, O’Connor again called the victim a racial slur and the two agreed to cross the street in order to fight. During the fight, O’Connor grabbed the victim’s head, leaned in, and bit and ripped off a large portion of the victim’s lip. The evidence showed that O’Connor then swallowed it.

The DA's office adds:

Neither the knife allegedly used in the assault on the bar employee nor the victim’s lip were recovered.

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Comments

Racially motivated attack? I just read you prior post, nothing racial about this attack.

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This year, as opposed to the licensing hearing I covered.

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It says right here in this article that he called the man a racial slur twice before biting his lip off and swallowing it.

As for people worried that biting a lip warrants a bigger sentence than shooting someone, 1. Shooting someone often carries a longer sentence than 5 years and 2. I think swallowing someone's bloody lip is much, much worse than pulling the trigger of a gun (and indicative of a much sicker mind). Jesus Christ

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Biting someone in a drunken braw takes a sicker mind than trying to murder someone in cold blood?

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Five years max for shooting someone, 22.5 years for biting someone's lip off? Something doesn't sound right.

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That dramatically ups the potential sentences.

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Most of the shooters getting laughably short sentences already have mile-long records.

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22 years for being a massive douchbag who clearly doesn't learn.

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a friend of mine had his lip bitten off at a bar that used to exist on brighton ave. he had a beef with some guy inside the bar so they threw them both out the door and locked it behind them. that's when the much bigger guy knocked my friend out and bit his lip off. that is why Molly's disappeared many years ago, big ol lawsuit.

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Convicted of Mayhem is my guess.

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That's all I got.

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Why concurrent and not consecutive? It's the legal system equivalent of fitting 10 gallons of shit into a 5 gallon hat.

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"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. But the Bud longnecks are cheap."

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Biting another dude's lip seems kinda gay. Then there is the swallowing...

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It's not funny. Next one will be deleted.

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Then why did u approve post in first place

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People logged into the system have their comments go up automatically; anonymous posts go into a queue where I have to decide whether or not to post. Over the years, people with accounts have generally proven they know how to behave themselves in an online forum like this one; anonymous folks, well, that's sometimes a different story.

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Markkk as to why his humor isn't appreciated here, as it absolutely kills among the fifth-graders he knows.

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But perhaps the word "intimate" would have been preferable to "gay". The guy could have instead gone Mike Tyson and gone for the ear, or even the also more accessible nose. Lip was the most intimate choice, doubled by consumption. All are really nuts.

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I can't imagine how annoying and time consuming it is to read and approve or disapprove every anonymous comment. You should solicit for volunteers to do this for you!

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