A St. Louis jury on Wednesday found 52-year-old Charl Howard guilty of second-degree assault on a special victim for a March 6, 2025 attack on Olive Street that left a man with severe facial injuries and multiple surgeries. The victim, who lived in a downtown boarding house, was discovered bleeding near the Mark Twain Hotel Apartments after the assault. Howard remains in jail while he waits for sentencing on June 12, 2026.
According to First Alert 4, officers say the victim told them Howard walked up, greeted him and then suddenly started punching him in the face, continuing the beating even after the man hit the ground. The outlet reports the injuries were so serious the victim needed several surgeries to repair the damage to his face. First Alert 4 also notes prosecutors won a persistent-offender finding, pointing to Howard’s prior convictions for burglary and destruction or retaliation.
Prosecutors point to video and past cases
Prosecutors leaned on witness photos and social-media video, and St. Louis Magazine reports that a downtown paralegal snapped photos of the attack as it unfolded. "This is a case about an elderly man who was defenseless, who was carrying his groceries…which turned into a violent assault," Assistant Circuit Attorney Dominic Cusumano told jurors, according to the magazine. The outlet also notes Howard had previously been at the center of a years-long murder prosecution that was dismissed in 2023 and later worked at the Mark Twain Hotel before being fired.
How the law affects sentencing
Under Missouri law, assault of a "special victim" is a class B felony, which normally carries a 5- to 15-year prison range, as outlined by Justia. State statute also provides that a finding a defendant is a persistent offender allows sentencing to the term authorized for the offense one class higher, per the Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Because the jury also found Howard to be a prior and persistent offender, that legal mechanism could raise his maximum prison exposure significantly at sentencing.
Sentencing and what to watch
First Alert 4 reports Howard’s sentencing is set for June 12, 2026, and that prosecutors argued his past burglary and destruction or retaliation convictions justified the persistent-offender designation. The station adds that prosecutors had pushed for a more serious charge, but after a two-day trial jurors returned a second-degree assault verdict. Court filings and the sentencing hearing are expected to show whether the judge uses the persistent-offender statute to extend Howard’s prison term beyond the usual class B felony range.
Why this case is being watched
Reporters say the case has drawn outsized attention because Howard’s earlier, drawn-out murder prosecution became a touchstone for criticism of the former Circuit Attorney’s Office. St. Louis Magazine reports that history, combined with social-media evidence in the grocery assault, helped make this trial especially visible. The conviction is widely viewed as one measure of how the Circuit Attorney’s Office is handling violent-crime cases after years of delays and staff turnover. The June 12 hearing is the next big moment; court records and any formal statement from the Circuit Attorney’s Office are likely to spell out the final charges and how the sentencing math ultimately shakes out.
