‘My Dad Hit Him 3 Quick Times’

His hair freshly trimmed, his shirt crisply pressed and his wrist in a red, white and blue cast from a recent hockey injury, the witness nodded that yes, he knew the difference between right and wrong. Yes, he said, he understood about telling the truth: If you don’t, “you get punished.”

With that introduction, 12-year-old Quinlan Junta mesmerized a crowded courtroom here Tuesday as he took the stand as a defense witness in the trial of his father, charged with beating another sports dad to death at a youth hockey practice. Thomas Junta, 44, never took his eyes off his only son as the boy recalled the fight at a nearby ice arena on July 5, 2000, that claimed the life of 40-year-old Michael Costin.

“I saw my dad, and then I saw Mr. Costin on his back,” the sixth-grader testified. “I saw him flip [Costin] over his shoulders. He went on the floor. I just like stood there. My dad hit him three quick times, really quick.”

On cross-examination, prosecutor Sheila Calkins asked Quinlan: “You yelled out to your dad, ‘Stop!’ didn’t you?”

“Yes,” the boy answered.

Costin never regained consciousness. He was pronounced dead the next day.

Thomas Junta, charged with manslaughter, contends he is not guilty because he acted in self-defense during the fracas at the end of a children’s practice. The trial is expected to go to the jury by week’s end. If convicted, Junta could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.

The sons of both men were on informal but opposing teams. The fatal altercation started when the two fathers exchanged harsh words on the ice. Costin, in skates, was supervising the practice and Junta, in shorts and a muscle T-shirt, was complaining that the play was too rough.

The argument boiled over into a locker room, where the men fought before being separated. The last, lethal round took place in an open area in front of the skating rink, where Costin was left unconscious on the rubber mat that covered the floor.

The case has drawn widespread attention as an example of the danger of parental over-involvement in youth sports. Both Junta and Costin were avid hockey dads whose sons regularly skated at the Burbank Ice Arena in Reading, 15 miles north of Boston. When the informal stick practice degenerated into a brawl on the ice 17 months ago, Costin’s three sons were on one side of the action--and Quinlan Junta was on the other.

“I thought I was just going to be playing a friendly game,” Quinlan said. When his team started to win the pickup game, he said, “they started hitting us.”

The boy, whose hockey career already has encompassed more than half his life, took the stand amid controversy both over the use of child witnesses and over the use of their full names. Against the judge’s advice, a 12-year-old figure skater who testified Monday was identified both by prosecutors and by some news organizations.

Prosecutors did not summon Brendan, 14, Michael, 13, or 12-year-old Sean Costin as witnesses--although the victim’s three sons were present the day their father died. Any of the boys could be called as rebuttal witnesses.

Defendant Gives Son a Pep Talk During Break

The witness list for the trial includes 11 children, three of whom have testified so far.

Seeking some privacy in a quiet corner of a hallway outside the courtroom Tuesday, Thomas Junta seized the occasion of a brief recess to give Quinlan a fatherly pep talk.

“Tell the truth,” he said, shaking the boy’s hand. “Don’t let them scare you.”

It was a variation of the admonition Quinlan said his father gave him after the friendly sports practice deteriorated into a pile of 10- to 12-year-old boys slashing each other with hockey sticks.

“He told me to defend myself,” Quinlan said.

Junta, a 6-foot-2, 275-pound truck driver when the incident took place, himself rushed from the stands to the ice to defend his son’s team when the practice turned rough. His 12-year-old joined a chorus of witnesses who recounted how Junta, enraged, called out to Costin--who was skating with the boys--to break up the rumble. A self-employed carpenter, Costin was 6 feet tall and weighed 156 pounds.

Quinlan said Costin replied, “Hockey’s about hitting.” Thomas Junta fired back with an expletive and said, “It’s about having fun.”

Repeated testimony since the trial began Thursday indicated that the two men first scuffled in a locker room when the practice ended. Ryan Carr, a 21-year-old hockey player from St. Michael’s College in Vermont, pulled the combatants apart. In front of the jury Monday, Carr used his fists to demonstrate how Junta and Costa were fighting.

Carr testified that it was Costin who threw the first punch in the locker room. Carr also said Junta abruptly stopped hitting Costin and simply walked away.

Rink Manager Testifies About Calling Police

A rink manager, Nancy Blanchard, on Monday told the court she immediately called the police emergency line. One concern she had, Blanchard said, was that “there were kids everywhere.”

Junta left the locker room but returned minutes later. In a police tape recording made the day of the incident, he said he came back to tell Quinlan to hurry and get his skates off.

“He’s always been a totally slow dresser, my son,” Junta was heard saying in the tape.

Once again, Junta and Costin were face to face, this time outside the locker room. They exchanged heated imprecations and again began to fight.

Blanchard recalled that the violence “seemed like three years, it seemed like three minutes.”

Virginia Brings, who was waiting to drive her grandson home after the stick practice, said she saw Junta atop Costin, repeatedly hitting him in the head with his fists.

“I kept screaming, ‘Stop! Stop! Please stop! Think of your children, you’re going to kill him,’ ” Brings testified Tuesday. “I remember saying to Mr. Junta, ‘He’s not responding, he’s not responding. Don’t hit him anymore.’ ”

The question of how many times Costin was hit remained central but also unresolved. Quinlan Junta echoed his father’s statement to police after the melee that Costin was hit just three times. Other witnesses were less certain. Brings said she saw “at least 10” punches thrown.

Asked by defense attorney Thomas Orlandi Jr. whether her memory was clouded by time or the emotion of the moment, Brings said firmly: “It’s something that I will never forget. It went on and on. He wouldn’t stop, and I was thinking, he’s either going to kill this man or he is going to have brain damage.”

After the fight, “I wanted to see my dad,” Quinlan told the court Tuesday. The boy said he was crying. The two friends who had come with him also were crying, Quinlan said.

He was upset, Quinlan said, “because I never saw anything like that before.”

For his part, the older Junta waited outside the ice arena with his shirt torn and scratches on his face. Police officers testified that he was polite and cooperative as he explained that he had been a participant in a fight inside the arena.

In the police tape played Monday, Junta said it was too bad that Costin had allowed such rough play in a children’s hockey game. The two had never met before that day, Junta told police.

Asked by police if there was anything else he wanted to say, Junta said, “I wish it had never happened. And I hope the guy’s fine.”