NEWS

Wharton man charged with dislodging eyeball of drunk man

Peggy Wright
@PeggyWrightDR

A Wharton resident who was the subject of a Morris County Sheriff’s Office CrimeStoppers alert has been caught by Morristown police and was being held Thursday for allegedly dislodging an intoxicated man’s eyeball out of its socket at the Dover Train Station.

The Sheriff’s Office on Feb. 13 issued a CrimeStoppers notice that asked for the public’s help in locating Tyson G. Coney, 28, and last known to live in Wharton. Coney was wanted in connection with an alleged aggravated assault in the early morning hours of Feb. 13 on a 44-year-old man -- described as intoxicated and defenseless -- outside the Dover Train Station.

Criminal complaints filed in Superior Court, Morristown, show that Coney was apprehended early on Thursday. He is accused of attacking “an intoxicated, defenseless” man on Feb. 13, causing the victim’s right eye to become dislodged from the eye socket. The assault caused “severe trauma” to the area around the victim’s right eye, according to complaints against Coney signed by Dover Detective Ronald Camacho.

An official at the Morris County jail said that Morristown police brought Coney early Thursday to the jail, where he is being held on $50,000 bail. Town Detective Lt. Stuart Greer said that Coney was in a vehicle stopped by police, who discovered the active arrest warrant out of Dover.

Dover police on Feb. 13 responded to the train station on a report of an assault found the victim lying on the ground unconscious. He was brought to Morristown Medical Center, where he underwent surgery for his injury.

Coney previously was convicted in Morris County and sentenced in 2006 to seven years in prison for snatching purses from two women in a Cattano Avenue parking lot in Morristown in 2005 and smashing a third woman in the head with a 24-ounce bottle of beer in the same lot before running away with her purse.

The three robberies occurred within a three-week period in the winter of 2005. The three victims lost small amounts of cash and were able to replace credit cards and identifying documents. But one victim lost the rosary beads she carried that were blessed by the late Pope John Paul II, according to trial testimony.

Staff Writer Peggy Wright: 973-267-1142; pwright@njpressmedia.com