Plea offer taken in Joplin burglary case

Apr. 19—A Joplin man resolved one of two felony cases he has pending in Jasper County Circuit Court by taking a plea offer this week in a burglary and assault case that granted him a suspended imposition of sentence.

John K. Conney, 54, pleaded guilty Thursday in Jasper County Circuit Court to a misdemeanor count of assault in a plea deal dismissing a felony burglary charge and two other misdemeanors.

Judge Joseph Hensley accepted the plea bargain and granted Conney a suspended imposition of sentence with one year of unsupervised probation.

Conney was arrested on the charge April 20, 2023, after purportedly entering a storage unit at UHaul, 2521 E. Seventh St., through a door left open after hours. A general manager spotted Conney sitting on a couch inside the unit and informed him he was trespassing, according to a probable-cause affidavit.

Conney allegedly responded by striking the general manager and a second employee with the bicycle he was riding until the employees were able to gain the upper hand on him and hold him until police arrived.

The defendant has a hearing coming up May 7 on felony assault charges filed on him in June of last year after he purportedly attacked Trevon Shelton, 26, when Shelton tried to intervene on behalf of a neighbor who was in a fight with Conney.

The police report in that case alleged that Conney struck Shelton twice with a board, threw a rock at him and tried to run him over with a vehicle.