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Man Charged With Biting Two People At Lollapalooza

CHICAGO (CBS) -- A 33-year-old man has been charged with tackling a man at Lollapalooza, and biting the victim and another man, before running off like nothing had happened.

Ben Lenet, 29, was watching the Arctic Monkeys on stage with two friends on the first night of the festival, when a man in the crowd attacked one of his friends. Lenet said he tried to pull the man off, and that's when the man bit him hard, drawing blood.

"And fully locked his jaw into my left forearm," he said.

Lenet said he and his friends started hitting the man to get him off, but when he finally let go, he tried to bite the first man he attacked, and one of Lenet's friends kicked the man in the face.

The man got up and walked away as if nothing had happened.

On Thursday, Sergio Vicenteno appeared in court on aggravated battery charges. Prosecutors said he approached one man from the back, placed him in a chokehold, and tossed him to the ground. When the victim's friends tried to help, Vicenteno allegedly bit one of them on the arm, then bit the first victim on the shin.

A judge set Vicenteno's bail at $600,000.

Lenet said, as a precaution, he was given HIV cocktail drugs, and has to come back for HIV testing 30 days after his first treatment; and again in four months.

"Anytime anyone says to you; when you talk about your exposure to AIDS or hepatitis, it's scary. I'm a smart guy and I recognize the risk here is low. I'm probably fine," he said. "In four months this will probably be a pretty crazy story to share with friends over a beer, but it is very present on my mind right now."

Lollapalooza Bite
Three days after a stranger bit his arm at Lollapalooza, the teeth marks are still visible on Ben Lenet's arm. (Credit: Ben Lenet)

Lenet said the attack put him off going back to Lollapalooza for for the last two days of the festival, and he said he's "done with Lolla for a while."

"In describing it to the police later, they said 'We never see cases like that where the attacker isn't on PCP, or bath salts, or something like that,'" Lenet said. "There's no way a normal person could have sustained that much punishment, and just walked away."

(TM and © Copyright 2014 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS Radio and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2014 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.)

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