Not guilty plea entered in hockey brawl

Thomas Junta could face 20 years in prison for manslaughter

By Franci Richardson

July 11, 2000 Web posted at: 10:32 AM EDT (1432 GMT)

READING, Massachusetts (The Boston Herald) -- A Reading man, who vacationed over the weekend as a Lynnfield family was making funeral arrangements for the father he's accused of beating to death, turned himself in today.

Thomas Junta, 42, pleaded not guilty to manslaughter. The charge was filed after the state medical examiner's ruling that Michael A. Costin, 40, was killed by ``blunt-force trauma to the head and neck'' was released yesterday, Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley announced last night.

``We allege the death resulted from wanton and reckless assault and battery inflicted by Mr. Junta,'' Coakley said during a press conference at Reading police headquarters.

A Wakefield woman who identified herself only as a relative of Junta said the family was aware a warrant had been pending for his arrest, ``but we have no comment at this time.''

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But Costin's mother, Joan Costin, with whom he lived, said, ``You know, as badly as I feel for my four grandchildren, (Junta) doesn't realize what his family and his sons are going to have to go through.

``Those kids will have to go back to school and people are going to say, `Your father is a murderer.' And they're going to have to live with that for the rest of their lives.

``It's not only on us,'' she said. ``He ruined two families.''

Junta was arraigned today in Woburn District Court for brutally beating Costin to death Wednesday at the Burbank Ice Arena in Reading over a fight that broke out between their 10-year-old sons, Coakley said.

Police say Junta, a truck driver who has lived in Reading the past 10 years, has so far cooperated with investigators.

Coakley said they obtained the arrest warrant for manslaughter - a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison - because there was no evidence of premeditation on Junta's part.

``There's no indication here of intent to kill,'' she said.

Michael A. Costin was beaten unconscious and declared brain dead on Thursday

Between 25 and 40 people - including Costin's three sons and other children - witnessed ``bits and pieces'' of his run-in with Junta, which ended with Costin lying bloody on the floor beneath an ice-rink soda machine, Coakley said.

Costin's death appeared ``pretty instantaneous,'' Coakley said. ``When he arrived at the hospital he was immediately put on a ventilator, but he was essentially brain dead.''

Investigators applied for an arrest warrant late Saturday after receiving the medical examiner's findings.

Coakley confirmed yesterday there was body-checking and fighting during a youth hockey stick practice between Reading and Lynnfield children, followed by words exchanged between Junta and Costin ``about what Costin was or wasn't doing on the ice'' to intervene.

Junta apparently became enraged at Costin and was ejected from the rink, but later returned and confronted him at a soda machine, where he allegedly beat him unconscious.

Yesterday, along his Hancock Street cul-de-sac, neighbors described Junta as a ``good neighbor and good father.''

One neighbor, who declined to be named, said, ``he's a wonderful guy, father, and neighbor. That's all.''

Despite a lengthy criminal history owed to violent behavior between the late 1970s and mid-1990s, Costin was also described by friends as a loving father whose mother was helping him raise the three sons and a daughter he had custody of from his estranged wife.

A funeral Mass will be said for Costin tomorrow at 11 a.m. at Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Lynnfield.

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