Judge won’t lower bond for man accused of fatal assault in Lexington parking garage
A Fayette County judge on Tuesday denied a bond reduction for a man accused of beating another man to death in a downtown Lexington parking garage last week.
Benjamin Call’s attorneys asked Fayette District Judge Lindsay H. Thurston to lower their client’s bond from $750,000 to $150,000. Call, 39, lives in Ohio and is married with two children, one of his attorneys said in court Tuesday. Call was charged with murder after he allegedly used his hands and feet in the Oct. 25 beating caught on surveillance video and witnessed by a responding officer, police said. John Tyler “Ty” Abner died at the scene.
Call hoped to be able to go back to his family while on electronic monitoring, but “he could make arrangements to live in Lexington,” his attorneys said in court.
“They would need time to raise the money, so it wouldn’t be as if he was getting out today,” Abe Mashni, one of Call’s attorneys, said in court Tuesday. “This is a request that they think is the most amount that they could possibly come up with.”
Call, who had a job as a chief inspector on a compressor station prior to his arrest, was additionally willing to accept “any condition” the court imposed on him if it would lower his bond, his attorneys said.
But prosecutors objected to a bond reduction because of the nature of the accusations against Call. Thurston agreed with prosecutors.
“This court cannot ignore the seriousness of the allegation that has been placed against you,” Thurston said. “It is murder. It is a Class A felony. It is the most serious allegation in the Commonwealth.”
Call’s bond remained at $750,000. He was scheduled for a preliminary hearing Tuesday, which would have allowed witnesses to be called as Thurston considered whether or not there was enough evidence to send Call’s case to a grand jury. But Call’s attorneys waived the preliminary hearing and sent the case to a grand jury.
The grand jury will determine if there’s enough evidence against Call to indict him and send his case to circuit court. The grand jury could also bring additional charges against Call.
Call allegedly provided statements that corroborated the charge of murder after Abner died in the Victorian Square Parking garage on West Short Street, police said in the arrest citation.
After Abner was found, Call was taken to the Lexington-Fayette County Detention Center where he remained Tuesday, according to jail records.
Abner’s friends and family took to social media after his death to commemorate him.
Rikki Bigham wrote in a Facebook post that “this world is a darker place” without Abner, who was 31 years old.
“Anyone who knows Ty Abner knows when he was around you were always laughing and smiling,” she said.
On Sunday, friends and family honored Abner by carrying on his haunted house for Halloween.
This story was originally published November 2, 2021 at 11:55 AM.