DAVIE, FL - The man who was beaten after being accused of molesting a 3-year-old was released from the hospital this morning and arrested, according to the Davie Police department.
Luke Petruschke was booked into the Broward County Main Jail and charged with molesting a victim under 18 years old. He is being held without bond.
On Saturday, police said Krish Carter and Manuel Vega nearly beat Petruschke to death with concrete blocks and rocks after Vega's 3-year-old son told his father that Petruschke had fondled him.
Petruschke had been placed in a medically induced coma at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, but was cleared and was released this morning, police said.
When Krish Carter and his wife Dawn Dwyer-Carter met Luke Petruschke at a homeless shelter earlier this year, didn't know he had been arrested twice for sex crimes.
They became good friends, she said, and introduced him to their new neighbor, Manuel Vega, at a Labor Day barbecue this year. The three men planned to go fishing the day of the beating.
Petruschke, 38, spent Friday night at Vega's home in the 5100 block of Davie Road after having dinner with the family, police said. The next morning, after the boy made his allegation, a witness saw neighbors Vega, 27, and Krish Carter, 43, smash Petruschke's car windows with concrete blocks, drag him out and beat him, police said.
Vega and Carter are being held in the Broward Main Jail without bail. Each faces one count of attempted murder.
Vega's anger was completely justified, said Dawn Dwyer-Carter. And she says she understands why her husband got involved.
"I'm not surprised he got in the middle of it, he's a father, too," Dwyer-Carter said.
She and her husband met Petruschke at a Fort Lauderdale homeless shelter they were living at two years ago, she said. But she never imagined Petruschke would be accused of molesting a child.
"It's a shock that somebody of his character could do something like that," Dwyer-Carter said of the accusations. "Any time I needed help he would be the first to jump up and help."
Petruschke was in between jobs, but had just gotten a commercial driver's license to work as a truck driver, she said.
Court records show he has been arrested twice before on sex-related charges, but never convicted.
