By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – The 35-year-old man accused of stabbing a co-worker in the throat with a boning knife during a dispute last week at the Five Star Beef Company pleaded not guilty today.
[1]Sabino Gomez-Barriga
Sabino Gomez-Barriga, a Chehalis resident, remains held in the Lewis County Jail on $250,000 bail.
He is charged with first-degree assault.
The victim, 21-year-old Jorge Juarez of Centralia, was still being cared for at Providence Centralia Hospital as of this morning, according to Deputy Prosecutor Shane O’Rourke.
Gomez-Barriga is represented by court-appointed attorney J.P. Enbody.
They went before a judge this afternoon in Lewis County Superior Court to enter a plea of not guilty.
According to prosecutors, after an argument broke out at the Centralia wholesale meat business, Juarez punched Gomez-Barriga in the face, and Gomez-Barriga responded by jabbing Juarez in the abdomen with a meat hook and and then sticking him in the neck with a knife.
A trial date was scheduled for the week of Jan. 7.
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For background, read “Centralia slaughterhouse fight involved meathook and boning knife” from Friday November 9, 2012, here [2]