A Twin Cities man has been sentenced to prison for killing another man with one punch during a confrontation outside a Lake Mille Lacs resort during the 2016 fishing opener.
David M. Stay, 46, of Brooklyn Park, was sentenced Monday in Mille Lacs County District Court to a term of 4¼ years after jurors convicted him last fall of first-degree manslaughter and fifth-degree assault in the death of David Taute, 46, of Prior Lake, in May 2016.
Stay will spend the first 2¾ years or so in prison and then serve the balance on supervised release. Stay’s criminal history in Minnesota includes convictions for three instances of drunken driving, assault and disorderly conduct.
The clash occurred at the outset of the annual Minnesota fishing opener about 1 a.m. outside Nitti’s Hunters Point Resort on the lake’s eastern shore.
Witnesses told authorities that the two were talking before Stay knocked out Taute with one punch to the jaw. Taute never regained consciousness.
Stay was spotted afterward walking along a road and told a deputy, “I knocked him out,” the criminal complaint against him read. He told authorities that Taute had been pushing him. A sheriff’s deputy noted that Stay smelled of alcohol but did not appear to be intoxicated.
Video surveillance from the resort showed Stay throwing the fatal punch but revealed nothing Taute did leading up to being hit.