Man, 23, gets 5 years in bid to bribe victim.
A 23-year-old Jacksonville man on Monday accepted a five-year prison sentence for trying to bribe a robbery victim to stop cooperating with prosecutors.
Justin D’Meyers Jones pleaded guilty to witness bribery, a Class C felony that carries a 10-year maximum. Deputy prosecutor Sara Cowan told Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herb Wright that Jones, who was on parole at the time, offered to pay Shalique Clark to skip a May 25 hearing in the aggravated robbery case against 24-year-old John Diante Johnson of Jacksonville and two accomplices.
Jones was on parole at the time of the bribery attempt, and Monday is the second time he has been sentenced to prison in about two years.
His first prison sentence was for three years in August 2014 for repeatedly violating probation after convictions in February 2013 for forgery and August 2011 for residential burglary.
Court records show that in the burglary case, he and Johnson had burglarized a Jacksonville home in April 2011.
For robbing Clark, Johnson pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery, theft and felon in possession of a firearm charges in February in exchange for a 14-year prison sentence that includes punishment for the charges he picked up trying to smuggle marijuana into the jail with three other inmates.
According to a police report, Clark was ambushed at the William Manor apartments on Poplar Street by a gun-wielding, hooded Johnson, who police said forced Clark to strip half-naked so he could search for more valuables after she surrendered her phone and a bag of jewelry to him.
Johnson made her lift her skirt and bare her breasts while he searched her underwear. Clark was able to keep $2,900 concealed in her jacket during the search. Police later found Clark’s phone and jewelry in Johnson’s home.
Demetrius Baker, a maintenance man at the apartments, followed Johnson until the defendant displayed a gun and got into the passenger seat of a white Mercury Grand Marquis.
Baker was able to keep tabs on the car until Jacksonville police stopped the vehicle on West Martin Street. Johnson was not in the vehicle, but officers arrested the driver, Gregory Henman II, 26, of Sherwood.
Henman said he didn’t know for sure that Johnson had robbed anyone when he picked up Johnson that night. But he also told police he’d put co-defendant Christopher Lee Harriell, 27, of North Little Rock in touch with Johnson when Harriell asked Henman if he knew anyone willing to help him in a robbery, court filings show.
Both Henman and Harriell have pleaded guilty to robbery, reduced from aggravated robbery, in exchange for five years on probation. Henman had no prior felony convictions, but Harriell was on probation at the time for drug-trafficking, court records show.
Johnson initially denied involvement in the holdup, telling police when he was arrested that he had been with Henman on the night of the robbery to sell him drugs, according to court records.