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Vietnam veteran tied up, beaten during home invasion

BROCKTON, Mass. — A 72-year-old man is recovering after he was beaten, tied up, and robbed by three men during a home invasion.

Michael Acciavatti, a Vietnam War veteran, spent five hours trying to free himself after the robbers used his own suspenders to tie him up.

“I'm 72, I can't be getting bounced around the damn floor,” he said.

Acciavatti said it was around 5 p.m. Wednesday when he went to the door and was attacked.

“There was another door going into my house, on the other end, that's where they were hiding, right in there. They were waiting for me to open up that door,” he said. “Tackled me, they got me. They broke my hip right in there.”

The three men who attacked Acciavatti were wearing masks when the entered the home looking for gold.

“They were saying, ‘where is the gold where is the gold.’ I don't have any gold. ‘I'm going to shoot you, if you don't tell us where the gold is,’” he said.

At one point, the men even used a stun gun on the 72-year-old.

“They put the knee in my ribs and stuff. They were killing my ribs. They put themselves on my head, they just went nuts,” he said. “They slapped me with something, two or three times. They slapped me on my [behind] with something. They took my pants down. Did that. They weren't very nice.”

Accaviatti said, he has no idea who the men were. He was left tied up for 5 hours, before he was able to set himself free.

“I pulled on the suspenders, as hard as I could. Finally got it unlocked, it wasn't easy. I had a knife there too. I found a knife and I cut it off,” he said.

The suspects took off with his coin collection.

Accaviatti said he is in so much pain he can’t even walk. He is expected to have hip surgery Friday.