The Charlestown High School quarterback charged with stabbing a man early Saturday morning will claim he was acting in self-defense, according to his attorney, Mickey Weber.
Zack Donahue, 18, appeared in Clark County Circuit Court to hear the charges against him. Judge Dan Moore kept bond at $7,500 court-cash or surety bond.
Donahue is charged with class C felony battery resulting in bodily injury. He has been out of jail since bond was posted Monday.
Weber said paperwork will be filed within the next couple of weeks to notify the court of the intention to interpose a defense of self-defense.
“After reviewing the report and witness statements, we believe there is a strong argument this was done in self-defense,” Weber said after the hearing Thursday.
Weber said Donahue will not return to Charlestown High School this semester and the situation will be reviewed at the end of the semester. Donahue will attend Options Alternative School in Jeffersonville.
Moore ruled that Donahue must regularly report to the county’s probation department and limit his activities to school and work, Weber said.
According to a Clark County Sheriff’s Department report, Donahue stabbed 21-year-old Jonathan P. Westfall twice with a knife outside Donahue’s residence hours after the football team returned from a game in Lawrenceburg on Oct. 16. Statements by Westfall and Donahue as well as text messages sent that night indicated the two had planned to fight.
Donahue claimed to police that Westfall swung at him twice before he stabbed him, the report states. Westfall reportedly told police he could not remember if he swung at Donahue, but that he thought it would be a “fair fistfight.”
Westfall suffered a puncture wound to his right chest and had a partially collapsed lung. As of Thursday, he was still at University Hospital in Louisville in fair condition.
Police say the fight was over Westfall’s girlfriend, who had previously dated Donahue. Westfall claimed Donahue had been harassing the 17-year-old girl, and he was trying to put a stop to it.
Donahue faces two to eight years in prison if convicted.
Clark County
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Charlestown QB to argue stabbing was self-defense
Donahue will not return to CHS this semester
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