Jeannette man says Rialto stabbing justified as self-defense

The attorney for a Jeannette man accused of attempting to murder a former high school friend with a pocket knife said Monday that his client acted in self-defense.

Defense attorney Stephen Colafella told jurors that Anthony J. Sharp was tackled and hit with a knife to free himself from his attacker who was lying on top of him in the street outside the former Rialto Cafe on Nov. 24, 2022. Police said Joseph R. Williams of New Alexandria was stabbed 10 times during the altercation.

“It’s a case they (police) wanted to make because (Williams) got the worst of it,” Colafella said during his opening statement to the jury.

Testimony in the trial, which is expected to last about a week, will begin Tuesday.

Sharp, 23, is charged with attempted homicide, aggravated assault and inadvertent endangerment for his role in the fight that ultimately led to the Rialto being shut down. The restaurant and bar operated for nearly a century in downtown Greensburg.

Sharp's arrest following the alleged stabbing prompted Westmoreland County Prosecutor Nicole Ziccarelli to ask the courts to classify the Rialto as a nuisance bar. The bar's former owner agreed to close and sell the business, which reopened earlier this year as the 3 Stone Merchant gastropub.

The stabbing incident occurred nearly a year after another fight involving two men broke out outside the Rialto and resulted in gunfire in which one man was injured and one passer-by was shot dead.

Sharp, who has been free since December 2022 on $250,000 bail, claims he was also a victim of violence.

Colafella, in his opening statement, told jurors that Sharp, a former captain of the Carlow University men's basketball team and a senior at the school, was home for the Thanksgiving holiday when he went to bars with friends. At Rialto, he met Williams, with whom he had been friends in high school and whose sister he had previously dated, according to the defense.

The men exchanged words at the bar and got into physical altercations before the Rialto was evacuated because of the fight.

Colafella said Williams, a decorated high school wrestler, was upset that the smaller man bloodied his face and jumped on Sharp as the men were walking out.

Prosecutors acknowledged that Williams was initially the aggressor inside the Rialto, but then became the victim.

“Anthony Sharp brought a knife to a fist fight. He and Joseph Williams, the victim, got into a fight and after the bar was evacuated, he came out with a bloody face. He (Sharp) used a pocket knife to stab and slash Joey 10 times all over his body,” said Assistant Prosecutor Katie Ranker.

Ranker said surveillance video from inside the bar and nearby businesses and the Westmoreland County Courthouse shows the large crowd gathered outside the Rialto, but does not show the altercation between the men.

“In this case, it will depend on the eyewitnesses,” Ranker said.

Colafella agreed, but told jurors that police never interviewed the group of friends who were with Sharp that evening.