New Hanover man jailed on weapons charge

NORRISTOWN >> A New Hanover man faces some time behind bars on a weapons charge in connection with a domestic-related incident during which he threatened a girlfriend.

John Clifford Baker, 18, of the 2700 block of North Charlotte Street, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to 9-to-23months in the county jail after he pleaded guilty to charges of person not to possess a firearm and terroristic threats in connection with an April incident at his residence.

Judge Steven T. O’Neill, who accepted a plea agreement in the matter, said Baker is eligible for the jail’s work release program during his period of incarceration. The judge also ordered Baker to complete five years’ probation and to complete a domestic violence counseling program.

Baker had to forfeit the firearm, an AR-15 rifle, as a condition of the sentence. The judge ordered Baker to have no contact with the victim, a Pottstown woman.

An investigation began about 1 a.m. April 19 when New Hanover police responded to Baker’s residence for a report of an armed subject. A person in the home reported Baker was arguing with his girlfriend and had a gun, according to a criminal complaint filed by New Hanover

Police Corporal Dekkar Dyas.

The woman told police she and Baker were arguing and the argument escalated to the point that Baker threatened the woman with physical violence, according to court papers.

“At one point John also grabbed (the victim’s) head and shook it back and forth which caused her pain,” Dyas alleged, adding Baker also threatened the woman as he held the loaded rifle.

When police arrived, Baker came out of the room unarmed, denied that anything physical had occurred and indicated that he just wanted the woman to leave his residence.

Police recovered the AR15

rifle, “which was loaded with one round in the magazine,” Dyas alleged.

“Next to the rifle was a box of ammunition,” Dyas wrote in the arrest affidavit.

Other charges of simple assault and possessing an instrument of crime were dismissed against Baker as part of the plea agreement