Bail reduced for defendant in UMass stabbing
Friday, March 14, 2008
BELCHERTOWN (AP) - A judge has reduced the bail conditions of a former University of Massachusetts student charged with two counts of attempted murder in connection with a racially tinged campus fight.
His lawyer says 23-year-old Jason Vassell, now living in his mother's Boston home, will no longer have to wear an electronic monitoring device. His curfew also was reduced to midnight to 5 a.m.
Authorities allege Vassell, who is black, stabbed two white men in the lobby of his dorm Feb. 3.
Vassell's supporters say he acted in self defense after he was provoked by the two non-students who broke his dorm room window and yelled racial epithets at him.
Vassell is scheduled back in Eastern Hampshire District Court on April 16.








