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Marietta man sentenced in 'savage' stomping attack of man - over a pair of stolen boots

Prosecutors condemned Louis Xavier Fontanez's attack - calling it inhumane.
Credit: Cobb County

COBB COUNTY, Ga. — A Marietta man will spend the next three decades in prison after prosecutors said his savage attack on a then-60-year-old man left the victim paralyzed with a traumatic brain injury - all over a pair of stolen boots. 

According to the Cobb County District Attorney, Louis Xavier Fontanez confronted his victim in the parking lot of a Citgo gas station off South Cobb Drive back on Oct. 11, 2017.

Prosecutors said the two got into an argument there, and the victim tried to walk away, but Fontanez, officials said, followed the man and hit him, causing him to fall backward onto the concrete. Fontanez then apparently stomped on the man's head and walked away - only to return to the victim and continue stomping. The entire attack was caught on video. 

During an interview with Cobb County Police, Fontanez reportedly accused the victim of stealing a pair of boots, asking, “If someone steals from you, what are you going to do to them?”

RELATED: Police: He took a cupcake. They beat him to death with a baseball bat.

EMS rushed the victim, now 62, to the hospital, but the damage was lasting - it left him with a traumatic, irreversible brain injury, and doctors say there are no further treatment options available. 

Prosecutors condemned Fontanez's attack - calling it inhumane.

“Shooting someone is more humane than what this defendant did. Stabbing someone is more humane than what this defendant did. He stomped on this man like a piece of trash. And as a result, the victim lives as a prisoner in his own body, unable to speak, unable to communicate, captive in his own mind,” ADA Stephanie Green told the court. “I don’t understand how a human being is capable of doing this to another human being. The amount of hatred and evil this act took is incomprehensible.”

Fontanez entered a non-negotiated guilty plea last Wednesday to criminal attempt to commit malice murder, aggravated battery, and aggravated assault. But even during the hearing, prosecutors said, Fontanez continued to blame the victim, interjecting during a relative’s impact statement that the victim shouldn’t have taken the boots.

A Cobb Superior Court judge decried the “savage” act and sentenced Fontanez to the maximum of 30 years to serve in prison.

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