'It is a miracle': Attorney for Aaron Knapp says his client is awake after Facebook video raises questions

The attorney for former Lorain City Council candidate Aaron Knapp is calling it "a miracle" that his client has awakened from a coma within days of being described in a court filing as comatose and unlikely to recover from a motorcycle crash two months ago. A video posted Monday to Facebook by one of Knapp's friends has called into question whether Knapp, 52, of Lorain, was in a coma as attorney Robert Gargasz had said in a filing in Lorain County Common Pleas Court on Thursday, asking that the criminal charges against his client be "medically dismissed." Gargasz filed paperwork with three Common Pleas judges last week to dismiss two civil lawsuits he filed on Knapp's behalf. Judges dismissed both, but no ruling has yet been made in the criminal case against Knapp. In his filing just before the close of court business Thursday, Gargasz said Knapp was comatose and not likely to recover. But a video taken by one of Knapp's friends and posted Monday seemed to show Knapp awake, responsive and smiling as of 2 p.m. that day. In an email to a Chronicle-Telegram reporter on Tuesday, Gargasz said there's no question what happened between Thursday and Tuesday: "God had worked a miracle here," he wrote. "Report on that miracle." Knapp, 52, of Lorain, is being treated at an undisclosed hospital after suffering serious injuries in a June 6 motorcycle crash on U.S. Route 6 in Erie County. His two civil lawsuits were dismissed without prejudice, meaning they can be refiled. Still pending in Lorain County Common Pleas Court are felony charges including evidence tampering, perjury, intimidation, obstructing official business and possession of criminal tools, and misdemeanor charges of falsification, violating a protection order, obstructing official business and menacing. Gargasz had told the court Thursday that Knapp "has been in a coma in excess of three consecutive weeks and remains so incapacitated" and unable to communicate with his attorney. Then, just before 2 p.m. Monday, Knapp's friend Garon Petty — another client of Gargasz and Knapp's co-plaintiff in one of the now-dismissed lawsuits in Common Pleas Court — posted publicly on Facebook a 43-second-long video of Knapp in in a hospital bed. "Here's Aaron Knapp everybody!" Petty says in the video, telling Knapp he can smile. Knapp's eyes appear barely open. "You're on Facebook!" Petty tells Knapp, who immediately smiles a broad smile. "Aw, thattaboy. Everybody's gonna be happy now. Everybody's gonna be happy," Petty says, before turning the camera to himself and ending the video. Gargasz wrote in his email that "On the day of my filings he (Knapp) was in a coma." "It is a miracle that he has seemed to have (awakened) from the coma. But he is far from recovered," he wrote. "I will defer to medical professionals as to his prognosis and diagnosis and for the length of time he will be incapable of functioning as before."Knapp's "incapacity is real and you seem to be suggesting that he is in a condition other than as has been represented to the court," Gargasz wrote a Chronicle reporter who had written him seeking comment on Petty's video. "The representation made to the court was accurate on the date it was made. Mr. Knapp was in a coma. But by the grace of God he is being healed." Lorain County Prosecutor Tony Cillo said Tuesday he had seen the video and was collecting more information. He said the burden of proof would be on Gargasz to convince a judge Knapp is not currently competent to stand trial — competency in the sense that "you're able to understand things and assist your defense currently," Cillo said, not necessarily mental competency. He said Gargasz's motion seems to be moot regarding whether Knapp is still in a coma, and that his office expects to challenge it. The Erie County Sheriff's Office, which is investigating the June 6 crash that put Knapp in the hospital, said alcohol use is a suspected factor. It cited Knapp with operating without reasonable control, a misdemeanor, after the wreck.