An Oak Harbor resident is accused of attacking another man during a Thanksgiving day gathering and beating him so severely that the man sustained a suspected brain injury, according to court documents.

The defendant, Haden Rimer, appeared in Island County Superior Court Thursday. Judge Carolyn Cliff found probable cause existed to believe he committed the crimes of assault in the second degree and assault in the fourth degree.

Island County Deputy Prosecutor David Carman asked the judge to set Rimer’s bail at $10,000. Rimer has no criminal history, Carman said, but told witnesses at the party not to talk to police. As a result, everyone at the party was uncooperative.

Carman said he was concerned about the “level of control Mr. Rimer has been imposing on the witnesses.”

Rimer’s attorney, Nicole Nelson, said Rimer told people at the party not to call the police because he wanted to protect others from getting into trouble for acts they committed. She said he did not intent to threaten or intimidate anyone.

Nelson said that Rimer recently left the military on good terms and works for the “Island County chaplain.” She asked the judge to release him on his personal recognizance. Rimer’s fiancee and friend vouched for him in court.

Cliff noted that the description of the events in the affidavit of probable cause were disturbing. She set Rimer’s bail at a $10,000 bond or $2,500 in cash. The jail roster indicates that he posted bail.

On Nov. 28, a deputy with the Island County Sheriff’s Office responded to a report of an assault on Northeast Neil Street in Oak Harbor. He arrived to find that the victim’s wife had placed the man in the back seat of her car. The deputy noted that the man had blood bubbling out of his mouth and leaking from his head and eyes. He could not talk.

The deputy immediately called for an ambulance; responding medics intubated the man and transported him to WhidbeyHealth Medical Center, where it was determined that he had a brain injury. He was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for treatment.

During the investigation, the woman said she and her husband were new to the area. Some of his friends in the Navy invited them to a “Friendsgiving” gathering. While there, a couple of people started wrestling on the patio while the victim was just watching.

The woman said a man, later identified as Rimer, hit her husband in the face, knocking him out, the report states. The man fell head first onto the concrete patio and then Rimer got on top of him and started hitting him some more, according to the woman’s account. The woman said she ran over and tried to get Rimer off her husband, but Rimer grabbed her neck and threw her backwards, the report states.

Other people were able to break up the alleged assault. The victim’s wife became alarmed when she saw her husband was bleeding and not responsive. She asked someone to call 911, but Rimer and others warned her not to, the report states. She got help from someone in dragging her husband to her car and then called for help when no one else was around, the report states.

Investigators spoke to the victim and his wife at their home four days later. The man said he couldn’t remember anything from the time he was watching people wrestling to waking up in the hospital.

Deputies arrested Rimer at his home on Dec. 31. Rimer claimed that the other man was drunk and put him in a chokehold. He said he threw him over his back to the ground and punched him once in the face, the deputy wrote. He said he thought the man was OK, so he told everyone present not to say anything about what happened and to let the incident “go away without anyone getting into trouble,” the report states.

The deputy noted that Rimer is “a bigger guy who knows how to fight.”

“With Rimer appearing intimidating and telling everyone not to talk, it makes senses why nobody would talk to us as if they all might be scared of him,” the deputy wrote.