Man arrested again for 2019 incident | News, sports, work

Last week, a Marietta man was arrested on charges of attempted murder, criminal assault and child endangerment in connection with a 2019 incident for which he was already serving 14 years in prison after recently pleading guilty to an acquittal .

According to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office website, Jonathan Lee Hearn, 52, was arrested Oct. 24 on two counts of attempted murder and two counts of criminal assault, all felonies and a misdemeanor count of child endangerment.

The charges stem from a 2019 case, according to Washington County Prosecutor Nicole Coil.

According to previous reports, Marietta police responded to Hearn’s Marietta home on December 1, 2019 due to an ongoing disturbance and upon arrival discovered Hearn’s girlfriend running and screaming for help at a neighbor’s home. The officers found the girl’s sister unconscious with blood pouring from her mouth and the girl’s mother with blood on the right side of her face, a cut right eye, a swollen nose and a bleeding mouth. Hearn allegedly punched the mother in the face while she was holding Hearn’s 1-year-old daughter, causing her to drop the baby, then punched her several more times, threw her against the bedroom door and threw her to the ground.

He also allegedly punched his girlfriend’s sister in the face, threw her to the ground, picked her up and threw her face down the stairs, where she hit her head, resulting in a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain, a broken rib and two broken vertebrae.

Hearn was originally charged in 2019 with two first-degree felony counts of attempted murder, two second-degree felony counts of criminal assault and one first-degree misdemeanor count of child endangerment.

He entered written pleas to two assault charges and was sentenced to two consecutive seven-year terms. According to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, he began serving his sentence at Belmont Correctional Institute in St. Clairsville in February 2020.

These records also show that its expected release date is October 23, 2030.

Hearnhe filed a motion to vacate his conviction in July 2020, a motion to dismiss the charges in March 2021, and a motion to withdraw and/or withdraw the charges in November 2023 in Washington County Court of Common Pleas, and all of them were denied, according to court records.

He also filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio in July 2022.

Hearn said in the lawsuit that he did not consciously, intelligently or voluntarily plead guilty, according to District Court records. On August 28, the court accepted his request and ordered the dismissal of the charge.

The order granting habeas corpus and dismissing the plea states that there was incorrect information in the written plea agreement and that Hearn pleaded guilty believing he would be eligible for reduced sentence options, such as release court and credit for participating in the program, but due to his criminal history he was ineligible for it and received sentences that could not be commuted.

“The misleading plea agreement was never corrected during the guilty plea and sentencing hearing,” he added. proclaimed the order. “In fact, the record showed that (Hearn) was never advised of the mandatory, i.e., irreducible nature of the sentence he faced.”

The order found that Hearn entered into the plea agreement with a substantial failure to understand the material facts and likely consequences of the agreement and that the guilty plea must be made knowingly and voluntarily.

Coil said Hearn’s plea was dismissed on a technicality.

“In his appeal, he successfully argued that he submitted his application knowing that he would be entitled to judicial relief,” he added. Coil said. “The actual guilty plea in his case stated that a 0-year prison sentence was mandatory. This was a clerical error because a mandatory deadline had been set, which he was informed about orally many times during the explanation and sentencing. However, because of this clerical error, Mr. Hearn argued that he made the complaint knowing that he would be entitled to judicial relief. Therefore, because he was ineligible for judicial relief while serving his sentence, the United States District Court granted a writ of habeas corpus and dismissed his plea.”

Last week, Washington County Common Pleas Judge John Halliday ordered Hearn’s charges dismissed. An order to transport Hearn from the Belmont Correctional Facility to the Washington County Jail for a bond hearing was issued on Oct. 22, and he was then arrested on Oct. 24 on the original 2019 charges, Common Pleas Court records show.

Court records show Hearn was arraigned on October 25 and pleaded not guilty.

Court records show Hearn was issued a $200,000 cash bond and a personal recognizance bond, with conditions including a no-contact order with the victims and violation of temporary protection orders against the victims.

Neither court nor jail records show Hearn has posted bail, and the Washington County Jail website shows he is still in jail.

Hearn’s trial is scheduled for December 16-20, according to Coil.