Madison, Wisconsin- Everyone agrees that after two couples met at a Cottage Grove bar over the weekend they engaged in mutually consensual sex at the home of one of the couples, but there are differing versions of how a fight broke out during the sexual escapade, leaving one man in the hospital and another in jail.
Daniel Dinga, 26, was charged in court today with second-degree recklessly endangering safety with the use of a weapon and substantial battery with use of a weapon, both felonies which carry a combined total penalty of 23 and a half years of prison and extended supervision.
The criminal complaint filed today said Dinga and his girlfriend met Cesar Salinas and his girlfriend at the Outpost Bar in downtown Cottage Grove late on Friday night and Dinga invited the group to his house.
“After drinking more alcohol, the four ended up in a bedroom of the residence, with all four engaging in mutually consented sexual conduct,” the complaint says.
During the group sex, something — the complaint does not say what — caused a falling out between the two men.
“At one point while the four were engaged in sex in the bedroom, Salinas started arguing with the defendant and the two men started pushing each other while still naked,” the complaint says.
The story of what exactly happened next differs with the telling by each of the participants, but Salinas ended up at St. Mary’s in Madison where he was treated for a gash to his face that was 1 centimeter deep and 2 centimeters wide which took numerous stitches to close, according to the doctor who treated him.
Both Dinga and his girlfriend said after the encounter in the bedroom ended and everybody got dressed, Salinas and his girlfriend were in the garage where Salinas rushed at Dinga, starting the fight.
Salinas’ girlfriend said it was Dinga who started the fight. When it was over she picked the remains of a steak knife apparently used to cut Salinas and turned it over to investigators from the Dane County Sheriff’s Office the next day.
Dinga, the complaint against him says, “gave varying and conflicting accounts on how the fight started.” At first Dinga denied a weapon was involved, then later said Salinas had the knife, but Dinga said he managed to get it away from Salinas.
Dinga said after he and Salinas had a pushing match in the bedroom which ended the sexual foursome, he went to the garage to have a cigarette and was speaking with Salinas’ girlfriend when Salinas suddenly rushed Dinga with a knife in his hand. Dinga said he managed to wrestle the knife away from Salinas and then hit him with it in the neck. Salinas suffered no neck injuries, however.
The complaint says when Salinas left the bedroom after getting dressed, he was followed to the garage by Dinga’s girlfriend, and she made no mention of him going to the kitchen to get the steak knife believed to have been the weapon.
And Sheriff’s Department detective Brian Lukens noted that when he talked to Dinga Saturday, “he could detect the odor of intoxicants emitted from the defendant that was the odor associated with someone sobering up after a long night of drinking,” and that Dinga’s “eyes were bloodshot and glossy and he complained of feeling hung over. His shorts were covered in blood,” the complaint says.
In court Tuesday Dinga was released on a signature bond and Dane County Court Commissioner Dan Floeter ordered him to have no contact with the other couple, to possess no weapons and not to drink while the case was pending.