Casino Dispute Leads to Bitten-Off Nose in Mississippi

Posted on: November 30, 2022, 11:53h. 

Last updated on: November 30, 2022, 12:14h.

Ed Silverstein @casinoorgedsilv Read More
Expertise: Crime, Legal, Tribal Gaming.

Police are searching for the man who bit off another man’s nose during a fight this week outside of the Hollywood Casino Gulf Coast in Bay St. Louis, Miss.

Hollywood Casino Gulf Coast
Hollywood Casino Gulf Coast in Bay St. Louis, Miss., pictured above. The casino was the site of a man biting off another man’s nose. (Image: Booking.com)

The victim suffered what police described as a “disfiguring facial injury” during the culmination of a day-long argument turned fight on Monday. The nose-biting happened in the casino’s parking lot on Monday night.

The suspect was identified by local police as Mark Curtis Wells, 51, of Biloxi, according to the Sun Herald, a Biloxi, Miss. newspaper.

Wells and the victim spent much of Monday arguing over a golf game they had played at the casino’s Bridges Golf Course.

Wells is likely to be charged with one count of mayhem. Mayhem is charged when a suspect intends to kill a victim, the Sun Herald said. Another element of the crime is that the suspect mutilates, disfigures, disables, or destroys someone’s tongue, eye, lip, nose, limb, or another body part, the report added.

If convicted, Wells could be sentenced to as long as seven years in prison, the report said.

Police didn’t have updated information on the victim’s condition as of Wednesday. Also, as of Wednesday, police had yet to make an arrest in the case.

Prior Assault

In an unrelated incident at the property, a man who allegedly attacked his girlfriend after suffering multiple gambling losses was sentenced in August to 15 years in prison.

Christopher Neal McAlister, 45, of Hattiesburg, Miss., was sentenced to 45 years for the crime by Hancock County Circuit Court Judge Lisa Dodson. Thirty years of the sentence was suspended if he successfully completes the 15-year term.

Instead of the prison term, McAlister asked to become a patient at an alcohol and drug addiction rehabilitation facility. But Dodson was skeptical he would complete the extended program.

“I think you got off lightly today,” Dodson said to McAlister about the 15-year term in prison before he is put on probation. “I’m not going to take a chance on you.”

Two years ago, McAlister assaulted and choked his then-girlfriend following the casino losses, authorities said. He was previously convicted three times for domestic violence in 2008, the newspaper reported.

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