Jonathon Shields-Johnson
A Ladoga man who stabbed a 69-year-old in New Ross last year was sentenced to nine years in prison on Monday for convictions in two separate cases.
Jonathon Duane Shields-Johnson, 30, stabbed the victim once in the abdomen as he attempted to break up a confrontation between Shields-Johnson and another individual. It happened after a vehicle Shields-Johnson was a passenger in was waved down for reckless driving.
During a sentencing hearing in Montgomery Circuit Court on Monday, Shields-Johnson said he didn’t remember much from the altercation on July 23, 2018.
“I don’t remember doing it,” he said. “But I remember seeing him when I stepped back away to the road.”
Police searched for Shields-Johnson for more than 24 hours after the incident. He was found hiding in a closet at a relative’s home on Traction Road and taken into custody.
Additional charges were filed after his arrest after Montgomery County Jail staff learned that Shields-Johnson had controlled substances in his rectal cavity. According to a probable cause affidavit, Oxycodone tablets were placed in his rectum prior to his arrest. Trazodone, a legend drug, and tobacco was also found in a plastic bag recovered at Eskenazi Hospital in Indianapolis.
Shields-Johnson said he intended to “distribute it to the jail in order to get funds for his commissary while incarcerated,” court records state.
Shields-Johnson pleaded guilty Monday to battery with a deadly weapon and trafficking with an inmate, both Level 5 felonies. Other charges in both cases were dismissed as part of a plea agreement.
Montgomery Circuit Court Judge Harry Siamas sentenced Shields-Johnson to 10 years in the Indiana Department of Corrections with 154 days of credit.
Since posting bail in December, Shields-Johnson said he has “smoked some marijuana here and there.” In a pre-sentence investigation reporter, he apparently told a probation officer that he had also used meth during that time.
Shields-Johnson’s criminal record began as a juvenile when he was twice caught with drugs, including once while at school. He was convicted of theft in 2010, sentenced to jail, and then later violated probation. In 2011, he was convicted of retaining stolen property. In 2015 he was convicted on drug charges and violated probation. He was then convicted in 2016 for having a device that would interference with a dug screening test.
