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EBENSBURG, PA- A Nanty Glo man used a sausage and jerky making device as a weapon while assaulting his brother during an argument at his brother’s Belsano home on Tuesday.

The victim in the assault claimed his brother Harlton Nesbitt, 23, intentionally fired a wad of “hot and spicy” ground venison in his eye during a dispute that arose between the two over the excessive level of cayenne pepper the victim wanted to use in the recipe.

Even though the victim admitted to starting the dispute, Nesbitt was the one sent to the Cambria County Prison in lieu of $2,500 bail on a simple assault charge.

Sherriff Bob Kolar, the officer who filed arrest papers with District Judge Stephen J. Yesenosky, said the attack occurred just before 2:30 a.m. early Tuesday morning after the two brothers returned home from drinking at a local Ebensburg bar.

Sheriff Kolar said the two brothers tried to stop on the way home from the bar to buy some Slim Jims.  But it was late and the convenience store was closed.  Returning to the victim’s home and still hankering for a salty meat snack, Nesbitt suggested the two “break out the jerky gun,” a device like a heavy duty caulk gun that when filled with ground beef or venison is used by sportsmen to produce snack sticks and jerky that can be dried in a smoker or regular household oven.

“It’s actually an amazing gadget when used responsibly,” Sheriff Kolar said. 

The victim told police that he was “quite crocked” and insisted on adding an excessive amount of cayenne pepper to the 1.5 pounds of ground venison the brothers were preparing to insert into the gun.  The victim told Sheriff Kolar that his brother asked what he, the victim, was trying to prove.  Nesbitt later told Judge Yesenosky that-while he enjoys spicy foods when the spices being used add flavor to a meat-he does not like “hot food that is so hot it’s impossible to taste anything else.”

Nesbitt managed to get the gun away from his older, inebriated brother, said Sheriff Kolar.  He knocked the victim to the ground shouting, “You like spicy!  You like it hot!  Then how’s about some of this!”

With the snack stick nozzle attached to the jerky gun, Nesbitt pulled the trigger releasing a small “turd-like nugget” of spicy ground venison that ”plopped” into the victim’s open left eye, said Sheriff Kolar.

When police arrived, Nesbitt had already fled leaving the victim collapsed and moaning on the bathroom floor with a cold washcloth over the red and severely swollen eye, Kolar said.  The jerky gun, located on the floor in the kitchen, was confiscated and taken into evidence by police.