A 41-year-old Sauk Rapids man will serve 18 months in prison for climbing onto a train and assaulting the engineer with a knife last fall.
Samuel D. Hohman was sentenced Wednesday in Benton County District Court after pleading guilty in February to one felony count of second-degree assault as part of a plea deal that dropped one count of property damage. The judge also ordered Hohman to pay $13,319 in restitution to BNSF Railway.
According to court documents, Sauk Rapids police responded to a report of a stabbing just after 8:15 a.m. on Sept. 20 and found the train's engineer near the railroad tracks with blood on his head and face.
The engineer told police a man jumped on the train, wrapped his arms around the engineer's neck and told him to speed up and get out of town, documents state. The engineer said the man pulled a knife out of his bag and stabbed him in the forehead; the engineer then bit the man in the hand and was able to jump off the train.
The train was stopped in neighboring Sartell. Nearby, police found Hohman, who matched a description given by the engineer and had dried blood on his pants. Police also found a knife in the area. Several wires inside the train had been cut.
Attorney Adam Brainard, the public defender assigned to Hohman, said he did not have a comment on the sentencing.
Hohman has been previously convicted of a felony and misdemeanors for drug possession, a gross misdemeanor for DWI and several misdemeanors for disorderly conduct and violating restraining orders, according to the state's public records system.
