Box Elder man sentenced to four years in prison for impaling someone's eye with a cane

GREAT FALLS, Mont. - A 57-year-old man from Box Elder was sentenced to more than four years in prison for impaling a person's eye with a cane on the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation in July 2024.

According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Montana, police were dispatched to a house on the reservation on July 22 and were informed by a man at the scene that Mario Patacsil Jr. beat him with a wooden cane and struck him in the eye. They observed injuries consistent with his account.

Both men described an argument to the FBI that ended with Patacsil Jr. "poking" the man with his cane before fleeing.

Despite multiple surgeries, the man permanently lost vision in his right eye.

Patacsil Jr. was sentenced to 51 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for one count of assault resulting in serious bodily injury.