Man Nearly Beaten To Death In Valley Springs Outraged By Attackers' Plea Deal

VALLEY SPRINGS (CBS13) - Deputies say he was pepper sprayed and beaten with baseball bats by a father and son in Valley Springs, and has the scars to prove it.

"There's 10 hits to the back of my head and only one to my face. That tells you how much guts these fellas got," said Chris Wallace, who was viciously beaten.

Wallace is outraged, saying prosecutors just cut a deal that, he says, almost lets the men who tried to kill him off the hook.

"They fractured this funny bone in two places," said Wallace.

Broken bones from a tag-team aluminum baseball bat beating, Wallace says he was lucky to survive.

"They just stood there, and they were gonna beat me 'til I was dead," he said.

The Campo Seco man's face is scarred; and the back of his head is battered; and he's now deaf in his left ear. His mom feared he wouldn't make it.

"Because witnesses told me it looks bad. He had a hole in the back of his head like that," said Sondra Hill, Wallace's mother.

Wallace took his prized '65 Corvair into Valley Springs in late March. He says he passed two men -- total strangers -- standing in the road.

"I didn't say nothing to 'em. I just drove around 'em minding my own business," he said.

It was on his way back when, the Vietnam vet says, the duo ambushed him.

"They jump up, start chucking rocks at me. I pull over, throw my hands up and say, 'what the hell is this about?' And they come rushing at me with bear pepper spray in my face and baseball bats," he said.

The suspects are father and son Jeffery and Mike Newby. They were initially arrested for attempted murder, but Chris just heard from the district attorney.

"He calls me today and said, 'well, things didn't go our way,'" he said.

Wallace is furious. The Calaveras County D.A.'s Office reached a plea bargain.

Prosecutors say Jeffery Newby agreed to plead guilty to assault with a weapon for a for a two-year prison sentence.

They say his 18-year-old son will plead guilty to illegal use of pepper spray and will spend 16 months behind bars.

"The whole thing…it's turned out to be a farce," said Wallace. "No, I don't think it's fair."

The Calaveras County D.A.'s Office told us it can't comment on a pending case, saying, in general, cases are handled based on the evidence.

Chris has a theory. He admits he drove -- in his words -- like a crazy man in the '70s and '80s and admitted he has driving-related tickets and felonies.

"I think it's just a case of, I was a pain in the butt and they're not willing to help me out now," he said.

As for why he was attacked in the first place? "The D.A. told me this himself the other day: The motive is my car is too loud and I drive by their house too many times," he said.

Wallace has filed a civil suit for damages. He says it's not about the money, but the principle.

He says he did nothing to the suspects and they almost killed him.