Man enters guilty plea in brutal Aliquippa VFW beating

ALIQUIPPA, Pa. — The second man who was charged in the brutal beating of a man at the Aliquippa VFW in January 2025 pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and was sentenced to three to six years in prison.

The plea hearing happened Wednesday morning.

Channel 11 exclusively obtained surveillance video from inside the Aliquippa VFW from the incident on Jan. 5, 2025.

That’s when Preston Coleman was beaten for more than 30 minutes by Brett Ours. He was found guilty earlier this year. The beating is graphic, so we’ve blurred part of the video.

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A second man — who police identified as Ronald Brown — showed up at the VFW as the beating was happening.

In the video, you see Brown watching, and then throwing seven punches at Coleman.

On Wednesday, Brown admitted to participating in the beating and pleaded guilty to aggravated assault causing serious injury.

“Even though he hit him considerably less than Mr. Ours [did], he was still charged with aggravated assault. That was the lead charge, and ultimately what he pled to,” District Attorney Nate Bible said.

The judge agreed to the sentencing recommendation given by both the district attorney’s office and the defense of three to six years behind bars. It’s a sentence that Bible said Coleman and his family agreed with.

“We’ll never resolve it without getting their input,” Bible said.

The judge told Brown that in his entire career as both a judge and attorney, he’s never seen video of a crime as disgusting as this.

Channel 11’s Andrew Havranek spoke with Brown’s attorney after the sentencing.

“This was a difficult case. This was a negotiated agreement; I think it’s a good agreement for all sides relative to my client’s participation in the underlying incident,” Attorney Steven Valsamidis said. “I want to be clear, my client was not the primary target or focus of the Commonwealth’s investigation, but he did, unfortunately, participate in it. The resolution that was reached in his case was a fair one.”

Browns daughter, Ireland Brown, was also charged. Police said she just watched the assault happen, tried to throw away her clothing that had blood on it, and lied to police about who was involved after her father and Ours left.

She’s set for trial in May.

Ours, who a jury found guilty of aggravated assault and not guilty of attempted murder, is set to be sentenced on March 17.

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