Jury renders split verdict for man accused of dousing ex with hot cooking oil

Tasha Lomax suffered second-degree burns over 20% of her body after hot cooking oil spilled down her left side.

She claimed her ex-boyfriend, Herkley Fields IV, had doused her on purpose in McKeesport on Oct. 9, 2022.

“‘This is what you and your friends get for playing with me,’” Lomax testified that Fields told her.

But Fields, 31, of McKees Rocks, who testified in his own defense, claimed Lomax was the victim of self-inflicted injuries caused when her attempt to throw grease on him backfired.

“I didn’t just heat up a pot of grease to throw on anyone,” Fields said. “I was trying to defend myself by blocking the pot.”

After deliberating for several hours Wednesday afternoon, a jury acquitted Fields of the most serious charge he faced — aggravated assault — as well as burglary, criminal trespass and theft.

The jury, however, convicted him of reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor.

Trial began on Monday before Judge Thomas E. Flaherty. Lomax, 31, was the prosecution’s first witness.

On the morning she was burned, Lomax said, Fields climbed through a window on the first floor of her home and asked her to order him an Uber.

She said she did not contact police but instead called a friend and asked her to arrange the ride.

Lomax went upstairs. A few minutes later, she said, Fields climbed the steps carrying a black pot full of hot grease and threw it at her.

Lomax said Fields then took her phone. She had to ask her 6-year-old son to get help from the neighbor.

“It felt like fire,” she testified. “I still have a lot of pain to this day.”

A neighbor said Lomax’s son knocked on her door that morning asking her to call the police.

“‘He burned my mom,’” the boy told her.

Officers, already familiar with the address from previous domestic disputes, arrived just before 10 a.m.

When officers arrived, Fields was not there.

Lomax, who was in extreme pain, told them “Herkley did this.”

Fields was arrested several days later.

Learning to walk

Lomax was in the hospital for weeks, requiring multiple skin grafts.

Graphic images presented by prosecutors showed where Lomax’s skin had peeled away from her shoulder, arm, chest, torso and leg.

“I had to learn to walk again,” she said, noting that she still has flashbacks.

Fields said Lomax was making home fries for breakfast when she angrily accused him seeing another woman.

He said she picked up the pan and started to throw the oil at him.

“As I went to turn, she grabbed the pot, she leaned forward, and my arm bumped the pot,” he said. “I wasn’t intentionally doing anything.

“When it spilled everywhere, I didn’t know she was burned that bad.”

Fields told the jury Lomax’s arm was red, but there was no peeling or blistering.

He said he then left the house.

Fields said he was wearing a hooded sweatshirt that morning, which protected him from injury, but Lomax was wearing a tank top.

He told the jury that he spoke to Lomax by phone while she was at the hospital.

But Assistant District Attorney Emily Shanahan showed the jurors messages he sent her, including after he learned the police had arrived.

“Can’t trust you,” he wrote. “Cops don’t help, so hopefully, you see that now.”

Fields claimed that even after his arrest, Lomax continued to speak with him at the Allegheny County Jail regularly and put money on his commissary account.

Defense attorney Paul Ellis told jurors to use their common sense to determine what story made the most sense.

“If someone deliberately poured hot oil on you … would you ever have a nice conversation with them? Would you send them money?” Ellis asked. “No one would do that.

“She knew he didn’t do it. That’s why. The district attorney’s office and Tasha Lomax both know this was an accident.”

Shanahan told the jury that Lomax has no reason to lie.

“What does Tasha Lomax have to gain?” the prosecutor asked. “She’s already lost. She has injuries that are forever on her body. The only person who has an interest in the outcome of this trial is Herkley Fields.”

Electronic monitoring error

According to testimony, after Fields was arrested on charges of assaulting Lomax previously, he was released from jail and placed on Electronic Home Monitoring.

The county’s pre-trial services division hooked the service up at Lomax’s house, despite the fact she was the alleged victim and there was a no-contact order.

Omar Smith, who works for Allegheny County Adult Probation, testified that when he set the service up, Lomax said she was the defendant’s cousin.

But Smith received a call a few days later informing him that the residence actually belonged to the victim.

Smith said he then spoke to Lomax on the phone.

“She told me she was afraid, and she lied,” Smith said. “She expressed that she was afraid, and he forced her to.”

The prosecutor said Fields manipulated Lomax and the criminal justice system.

“They put him in her house,” Shanahan said. “Pre-trial services, literally, put this abuser in her home. That’s a massive failure.”