A Navy SEAL faces a criminal charge after he was accused of assaulting a minor last month.
Kyle Blackwell, 26, has pleaded not guilty to one felony count of assault likely to cause great bodily injury, according to District Attorney spokesman Steve Walker.
He is free on a $200,000 bond until his readiness hearing, scheduled for Thursday.
The charge against Blackwell stems from an incident on July 18, though a felony complaint, filed July 27, does not detail what happened. The document just orders him to stay away from the alleged victim, keeping a distance of at least 100 yards and cutting off any type of communication.
NBC 7’s calls to Blackwell’s attorney have not been returned.
Blackwell is also the target of a lawsuit, filed by a taxi driver who said the SEAL beat him up.
The driver, who asked NBC 7 to keep his identity concealed for fear of retaliation, told NBC 7 in January that he picked up a Blackwell and his fiancée from a bar in the Gaslamp and took them to the Hilton Bayfront. He said they paid their fare but as they were getting out of the car, the SEAL punched him.
Local
The driver said Blackwell, who told police he was a part of SEAL Team 5, punched the driver’s door window, hitting him in the head. As he tried to talk to Blackwell about paying to repair the damage, the driver said the SEAL punched him again.
According to the police report, Blackwell said the window broke as he was closing the door. He told police in was “in fear of his life” because the cab driver “looked Middle Eastern, possibly from Iraq or Afghanistan. He also told police he thought the driver, who is Sikh, was “possibly a Muslim extremist.”
According the report by San Diego Harbor Police, officers on the scene said it looked like the crack in the window was pushed in an outward direction and appeared as if the impact occurred from inside the driver’s seat. The report says Blackwell offered to pay to repair the window but the driver refused and insisted on a citizen’s arrest.
The City Attorney’s office initially filed charges against Blackwell, but they were later dismissed. A restitution check of $140 was eventually sent to the driver from the city attorney's office.
The civil case between the driver and Blackwell is still pending. The driver's attorney was scheduled to do a deposition with the SEAL the day he was arrested.
