unanimous not guilty verdict.

Mr. Wellman, a 20-year old Somerset resident, had been charged with unlawfully wounding David Cox, and being in possession of an offensive weapon.

He admitted that he had been involved in a fight but denied Mr. Cox's account that he stabbed him during an altercation at the Devonshire Recreation Club last October.

Mr. Wellman's lawyer, Larry Scott, said in the end, the jury had accepted that the key witness David Cox, a Westgate resident, had been too impaired by alcohol and marijuana to say for sure who had stabbed him.

Mr. Cox, who suffered a punctured lung during the fighting, had testified that he had been at the Devonshire club with a friend who was attacked by Mr.

Wellman and two others. The three men had knives he said, and when he went to his friend's assistance he was stabbed by Mr. Wellman.

But under cross-examination Mr. Cox admitted that he had smoked marijuana and had a few drinks that night.

Mr. Scott had submitted a no case submission, upheld by Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons, on the offensive weapons charge.