Man Who Intervened in Domestic Assault Still Recovering From Injuries

On June 29th of this year, Chicago musician Matthew Leone witnessed a man beating his bleeding wife on the sidewalk and attempted to intervene. He’s still recovering from his injuries and his assailant is out on bond.

Leone is only 5’6″ and 118 lbs, but that didn’t stop him from running to aid a woman who called for help. The woman’s assailant, her husband, turned his rage on Leone,

What came next was a barrage of blows, one after another, that knocked Leone unconscious and sent him to a hospital with a broken nose, a dislocated jaw and head trauma so severe that surgeons had to remove a third of his skull to relieve the pressure on his brain.

This would be horrible and shitty enough on its own, except for the fact that Leone doesn’t have health insurance and has had to rely on the generosity of others to help him meet his in-excess-of $300,000 medical bills and on the devotion of his brother to help him take care of himself. (If you’d like to donate, you can do so here. You’d be joining the likes of Billy Corgan and Gene Simmons in supporting Matthew.)

Meanwhile, his alleged assailant, 34 year old software engineer Justin Pivec, has been released on $125,000 bond, which seems a little unfair in light of the fact that he beat his wife and nearly killed the man who tried to save her, and people are understandably upset. A Facebook group called Hope I Never Find You, Justin Pivec has sprung up, and the Chicago music community has rallied around Leone. Even so, the gross injustice in this case- a heroic gesture is repaid with a life-threatening injury- is made even more upsetting when you realize that the man at the center of all of this is back on the street.