Flyers Fan who Beat Up Rangers Fan Outside Geno’s Gets the Ankle Bracelet
Dennis Veteri (AKA Claude Giroux) was sentenced today to 11-23 months of house arrest, plus five years probation, for beating up Neal Auricchio (AKA Ryan Callahan) outside Geno’s after last year’s Winter Classic between the Rangers and the Flyers. The brutal cellphone video that first captured the beating is no longer available, but several descriptions of the fight are worth reprinting:
Police in Philadelphia said the brawl started when the Flyers fans in the orange jerseys paid a man who was cleaning car windows to spray a Ranger fan with some sort of liquid.
Then, the fighting began.
…A large white man [threw] off his fur-trimmed coat to reveal a No. 28 Claude Giroux Flyers jersey. The man, described by police as “the main aggressor,” threw the first punch at a man in a Rangers jersey. The main aggressor and another Flyers fan in a Jaromir Jagr jersey then beat the Rangers fan while he was on the ground.
If Veteri won round one, he had no chance in round two. He was caught on tape, already had a rap sheet, and his victim was a former Marine. Like those violent sinners relegated to physical torment in the outer ring of Dante’s seventh circle of Hell, Veteri will be forced to confront his crimes by moving from Jersey to Philadelphia to satisfy the terms of his house arrest. [Daily News]
