Charges Held for Alleged Sword Swinger

All charges were held over for county court for a man accused of waving a sword around and threatening a crowd of bar patrons in Phoenixville.

Willard Lee “Man Man” Sallad Jr., 42, of Phoenixville, remains in Chester County Prison on $25,000 cash bail. Sallad faces charges of terroristic threats, possession of an instrument of crime, disorderly conduct and drug charges related to an alleged incident on Feb. 11.

At Thursday’s hearing, witness Zach Hoffmann was the first to take the stand. The owner of Club 212/Bistro on Bridge, Hoffmann testified that his head of security called police before Sallad allegedly started wielding a sword in close proximity to bar patrons who were outside smoking.

Hoffmann said he went outside to smoke and saw a man pacing and threatening patrons from the middle of Prospect Street in the 200 block, near the back entrance of Club 212 at 212 Bridge St. A man in a white van got out and tried to put Sallad into a van, Hoffmann testified, and then Sallad went to an alley and came back with a sword he said was about three feet long.

“He slammed it on top of the van and at that point, he threatened to cut everyone up,” Hoffmann said.

He told the judge he was concerned because Sallad was allegedly swinging the sword within 10 feet of a crowd of 15 to 20 patrons from the club, who were standing outside smoking at approximately 1:17 a.m. Hoffmann said police were called because security was no longer able to control the situation.

Officer Nick Heller told the judge he was called at 1:17 a.m. for a report of a disturbance near the rear of Club 212. Hoffmann waved him toward the van, where Sallad was being pushed inside by another man, according to Heller. After Sallad was in the car, the driver of the van tried to leave, the officer testified.

“The owner was trying to get into the car and drive away,” Heller said.

He told the van driver to stop and saw Sallad with the sword in his lap, according to testimony. Upon seeing Heller, Sallad allegedly dropped the sword to floor of the passenger side.

Heller asked Sallad to step out of the van and handcuffed him for safety purposes. Then the officer took hold of the sword, which he said was a 27-inch long double-blade sword with blunt sides and a nub where the handle was broken off.

“It had a very sharp point on it,” Heller testified.

Back at the station, as Sallad was removing his clothes to get into a temporary holding suit, he was talking with other officers as he pulled off a black pullover sweater, the same one he was wearing in court, Heller said.

A large green-tinted bag fell from the armpit area of the sweater, but Sallad was talking and didn’t notice, Heller said. The officer slid the bag backward, picked it up and displayed it to video cameras.

A field test on a substance in one of the nine bags contained in the larger bag came back positive for the presence of cocaine, Heller said. As Sallad had no means of ingesting the substance on him at the time of his arrest, Heller testified that he felt that the substance was packaged for sale. An unofficial weight measurement showed that the bags contained 2.5 grams of the white powdery substance, according to Heller.

Jamie Green of the public defender’s office asked that the judge take another look at the third-degree felony charge of terroristic threats. He said it should be downgraded to a misdemeanor.

District Judge Theodore Michaels said he typically doesn’t deal with grading at the preliminary hearing level, and then took a look at the statute. The charge states that terroristic threats involving serious public inconvenience has to do with diverting the normal operations of a business. As Pennsylvania laws state patrons must smoke outside at many establishments, Michaels said the charge was justified because a normal part of the business operation was diverted.

As for the reckless endangerment misdemeanor, Green argued that no one was injured by Sallad’s alleged sword waving. Michaels said he would be more fearful of a stampede, which could injure people, in this case.

All charges were held for county court and the formal arraignment was set for March 1. Two of Sallad’s family members were present and remained in the courtroom during the preliminary hearing. After the charges were held, they became vocal, threatening to call a supervisor from the District Attorney’s office and yelling at the intern assigned to the prosecution about another man they felt should be arrested.