May 5, 2008 9:47 pm US/Eastern
Wedding Night Brawl Couple: We're The Victims
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―
A local newlywed couple who grabbed headlines around the world after they were involved in a brawl on their wedding night have broken their silence.
Dr. David Wielechowski and his wife, Christa, say they are the victims from that night more than a week ago at a Ross Township hotel.
The couple, who addressed local media this afternoon, say since the news broke, they've been living a nightmare.
"What is being said and written about me is untrue and these allegations are ruining my life," David said.
"I heard that I was a punch line at the end of a Jay Leno or Letterman joke," Christa said.
She believes they became an international story because of video of her leaving the Allegheny County Jail in her wedding gown and the groom released with a black eye and wearing only one shoe.
The Wielechowskis say they had been drinking on their wedding night as they searched in vain for their hotel room on the seventh-floor at the Holiday Inn.
They started arguing when he wanted to go to the front desk and she wanted to keep looking and told him: " 'Well, you know what, you can just kiss my butt,' and I turned around and stuck my butt out at him," Christa recalled. "He's holding all these beers and went like this," she said playfully kicking out her leg, "on my butt. I took one step on this enormous gown and (fell)."
Christa said she lay on the floor laughing as a woman came out of her nearby room asking if David had kicked her.
"I'm telling both of them, 'No, no, I'm fine, I'm fine, can you please leave us alone, just leave us alone, mind your own business,' " she said.
They say two men came out of a room and one punched David in the eye twice and the other jumped him from behind.
"I was getting strangled to the point where I honestly thought I was going to die," he told reporters. "I was begging for my life. I was just begging for one breath and they were strangling my wife at the time and I did see this man swing and connect with my wife and at that time from the best of my knowledge I did hit this man who was hitting my wife."
The Wielechowskis say they were dragged onto the hotel elevator and the altercation continued all the way to the lobby where they fell out onto the lobby floor. There, they threw whatever they could grab at the people they saw as their attackers, forcing them to remain on the elevator and as it closed, they were left alone.
Christa yelled for someone to call the police. The Wielechowskis are the only ones charged in the incident.
"I feel like they're protecting the two young men," David said.
"When he was on a stretcher, he was being pulled out in a stretcher - I couldn't even recognize his face he was so bloody and beaten - and they said, 'Do you want to go to the hospital with your husband?' and I said, 'No, I want to make sure that these men go to jail for what they have done to my husband,' and I gave him a kiss and let him go, " Christa said.
The newlyweds plan to pursue that, but at the moment they have their own legal problems and will be in court later this month for a preliminary hearing.
The two Good Samaritans who police say tried to break up the fight have yet to speak publicly, but we have spoken to them off-camera.
They say their lawyers have advised them not to discuss the incident because they are witnesses in a criminal case.
More from the Wielechowskis:
The Groom In His Own Words The Bride In Her Own Words The Wedding Night Fight Family Life & Media Attention Impact On Dental Practice 'We're Very Playful'
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