SLIPPERY ROCK — All charges filed against three Slippery Rock University students for allegedly robbing and assaulting one of two Pittsburgh men who delivered marijuana to them earlier this month were held for court at a preliminary hearing Wednesday.

Aggravated assault, robbery and the rest of the 10 charges against Troy L. Moon, 21, Xavier A. Brown, 21 and Duy Q. Nguyen, 22, were ordered held for Common Pleas Court by District Judge Lewis Stoughton, who was filling in for District Judge William O'Donnell.

Stoughton denied motions from defense attorneys to reduce or eliminate each of the defendants' $250,000 bonds.

The victim, Richard Caporali of Edgewood, testified that Nguyen called him Nov. 7 and asked him to bring some marijuana to an apartment at the Grove Apartments in Slippery Rock Township and gave him the address. He said he met Nguyen through Brown, with whom he works.

Describing his role in the drug deal as the middleman, Caporali said he brought another friend with him when he went to Slippery Rock with the marijuana.

Nguyen and a black man he didn't know were in the apartment when they arrived, he said. After putting the drugs on the kitchen table, Caporali said Nguyen pulled a gun from a couch and said, “I'm gonna need that.”

After he and Nguyen began to struggle, three or four people entered from a back bedroom and someone struck him in the head with what he said he assumed was a gun. He said everybody in the room had a gun.

Caporali said he then heard a gunshot while he and Nguyen continued to struggle. Caporali said he and the friend he brought with him then fled the apartment.

When they got outside, he said he noticed that someone had taken $100 from one of his pants pockets during the melee. He then saw someone jump from a window and then three or four men left the building with one of them carrying a duffel bag.

“I was covered in blood,” Caporali said.

He said his friend drove him to Grove City Medical Center, where he was diagnosed with a compressed skull fracture, and then flown to UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh, where he stayed for two or three days.

Caporali said he doesn't know Moon, and didn't know if he was in the apartment.

Caporali said his friend carried a garbage bag containing the drugs into the apartment, and that four or five bags of marijuana were placed on the table. He said he didn't know how much there was, and he believed it was supposed to be sold for $6,000 or $7,000. He said the district attorney's office promised not to pursue charges against him related to the marijuana.

A student living at a neighboring apartment, Kiel Szocki, 21, said he got home at 7 p.m. and was doing homework when heard a commotion in the hall.

He said he looked and saw a white man covered in blood and a black man with a small cut on his forehead. The commotion quieted, so he went back inside his apartment, but opened the door later to take his dog outside and saw Brown, Nguyen and Moon. Brown was looking and pointing a gun at him, he said.

“The gun was pointed at me,” Szocki said,

He said he recognized Brown from a class they had together. Brown looked at him, said “shush” and then fled with Nguyen and Moon, Szocki said.

Brown returned to Szocki's apartment the next morning. Szocki said Brown apologized for pointing the gun at him, told him he had a permit to carry the gun concealed, and gave him a phone number to give to police if they asked him for it, Szocki said.

He said he didn't hear a gunshot.

State Trooper Jessica Titler, the investigator who filed the charges, interviewed the three men who were the tenants of apartment 1511, where the incident took place.

One of them, Kasper Tuomala, 22, said Brown was asked to the apartment to film a music video and he agreed, Titler said. Tuomala said Moon was carrying a duffel bag when he arrived with Nguyen and Brown, she said.

Tuomala told her he went into his bedroom, and at some point heard a scuffle and a gunshot. He waited for everything to settle down and left with Michael Sander, another tenant, she said.

Nguyen, Moon and Brown called Tuomala later, she said. Brown apologized for the incident, and Nguyen told him not to talk to the police, Titler said.

Sanders told her he was playing a video game in his bedroom when he heard a scuffle and gunshot, and saw a group of people scuffling in the living room. He fled from a bedroom window, she said.

Titler said police executed a search warrant at an apartment that Brown, Moon and Nguyen rented at 406 N. Main St. in Slippery Rock and seized two handguns. One was registered to Nguyen, and ownership of the second gun was in the process of being transferred from Nguyen to Brown, she said.

Lab tests on the guns are not complete, she said.

The case was prosecuted by Butler County Assistant District Attorney Mark Lope. Brown was represented by Butler attorney Al Lindsay. Moon was represented by attorney Justin Quinn of Beaver County. Nguyen was represented by attorney Owen Seman of Murrysville.