(Update- Oct. 9) A Suffolk County Criminal Court judge today reduced Anthony Wayne Smith’s bail to $50,000 cash ($100,000 bond) at his arraignment on the 15-count indictment returned by a grand jury on Oct. 3. Smith entered a plea of not guilty to all charges. His case has been adjourned to Nov. 19.
Original story: The Riverhead man arrested on assault and weapons charges after allegedly knifing another man on Railroad Avenue Sept. 25 has been indicted by a Suffolk County grand jury on felony assault and weapons charges, and a dozen misdemeanor charges, according to online court records.
The 15-count indictment handed down Oct. 3 charges Anthony Wayne Smith, 56, with: first-degree assault, a class B felony; second-degree assault, a class D felony; third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, with a prior conviction, a class D felony; and misdemeanor assault, menacing, weapons possession, obstructing government administration and criminal mischief charges.
Smith is scheduled to be arraigned tomorrow before Suffolk County Criminal Court Judge Fernando Camacho.
The charges stem from an incident in which Smith cut a 32-year-old Hispanic man across the face with a knife outside Mae’s Market on Railroad Avenue just before 8 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 25, according to Riverhead Town Police. (See prior story.) Smith was still present at the scene when police arrived and the victim identified him as his assailant, police said. During his arrest, Smith damaged police handcuffs and a computer keyboard being used by the arresting officer, according to a police press release.
At the time of his arrest last month, Smith had more than a dozen criminal charges pending against him, including a May 2014 felony weapons charge in another incident on Railroad Avenue in which he was found in possession of a gravity knife. He had been released on his own recognizance in all of those cases, some of which date back to 2008. He had appeared in Riverhead Justice Court on the May weapons possession charge just the day before his most recent arrest.
Smith has two prior felony convictions, according to state corrections department records posted online: a weapons possession charge in 1979, for which he served 11 years in state prison; and a felony assault charge in 2002, for which he served 6 years upstate.
Smith is currently being held on $100,000 cash bail, which was set by Riverhead Justice Court at his initial arraignment on Sept. 26.
Editor’s note: A criminal charge is an accusation. By law, a person charged with a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
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