A father and his surgeon son face serious charges after a stabbing in the wee hours of New Year’s Day at a popular island wine bar left a 26-year-old island man bleeding on the sidewalk.
What was supposed to be an evening of revelry to usher in 2024 turned violent after a supposed dispute over a seating arrangement at Grind and Grape on Bougainvillea Lane just off Ocean Drive.
Vero Beach police said Michael Gaudiani II, 30, an orthopedic surgeon in Michigan who graduated from Harvard University and Case Western Reserve Medical School, pulled another bar patron forward while his father, Michael Gaudiani, 66, of Vero Beach and Shaker Heights, Ohio, stabbed the man in the abdomen.
“The victim stated the next thing he knew, he was bleeding from his side out on the sidewalk,” police said in the arrest report. “He stated he did not know the person who stabbed him and had never seen him before.”
After the incident happened near the bar, security staff separated the patrons, noticed the man was injured and called for help. The Gaudianis were already gone before police arrived, officers said. Police later found the pair at the senior Gaudiani’s residence on Seagrape Lane in Riomar.
Michael Gaudiani, the father, was charged with second-degree felony aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. His son, Michael Gaudiani II of Detroit, was charged with first-degree misdemeanor battery.
The senior Gaudiani was released last Tuesday from the Indian River County Jail on a $100,000 bond. The younger Gaudiani was released Friday from the county jail on a $10,000 bond.
The wounded man, identified by police as Mason Haynes, was taken by ambulance to HCA Florida Lawnwood Hospital in Fort Pierce with non-life-threatening injuries, officials said.
Haynes was released from the hospital on Friday, Vero Beach police spokesperson Officer Kelsea Callahan reported.
Before the stabbing, hundreds of patrons had spilled out of Grind and Grape onto the street outside as music blared and New Year’s Eve fireworks exploded overhead. Bougainvillea Lane is typically closed off during the eatery’s New Year’s Eve party.
Inside, Grind and Grape was crowded with patrons standing shoulder-to-shoulder while navigating their way up to the bar.
When police responded to the post-midnight stabbing, they found Haynes on the sidewalk bleeding heavily from his side, reports show. Security officers told police that the older Gaudiani got into an altercation with Haynes moments before things turned violent.
Police reviewed surveillance footage, which showed the Gaudianis approach Haynes while he was standing by himself at the bar.
“It appears that some type of disagreement takes place and words are exchanged,” police said in a report.
The video showed the younger Gaudiani – an Ivy League swimming champion while at Harvard – yank Haynes forward, while the older Gaudiani sliced him with an unknown object, police said. Police went to Gaudiani’s home, arrested him and charged the son four days later.
Two of Gaudiani’s relatives, who were at his home when he was detained, told officers the family had gone to Costa d’ Este Beach Resort & Spa across Ocean Drive from Bougainvillea, moved on to Grind and Grape, and then home. They said other family members did not see the stabbing, and that the father and son hadn’t talked about what happened before police arrived.
It was unclear if police found the weapon used in the stabbing.
The younger Gaudiani is a doctor at Henry Ford Heath, according to the Henry Ford website. His father was listed on jail records as self-employed.
Gaudiani has an arraignment at 10 a.m. Feb. 1, while details on the son’s arraignment were not available.
