The Mountaineer

A 23-year-old Canton man will spend the next five months in police custody after pleading to a felony attempted child abuse charge Wednesday. 

Represented by attorney Janna Allison, Daniel Ryan Jones entered an Alford plea to felony attempted child abuse of a 9-month-old victim. By entering an Alford plea, Jones maintains his innocence while admitting there is sufficient evidence with which the state could likely convince a jury to convict him. The court treats such pleas as a plea of guilty.

Jones was also sentenced Wednesday on charges to which he pleaded during an earlier court session. Those charges include felony flee to elude arrest, misdemeanor driving while impaired and misdemeanor assault on a police officer.

Superior Court Judge Dennis Winner consolidated the misdemeanor assault and felony flee to elude charges for sentencing, imposing a six- to eight-month prison sentence, for which Jones was given credit for pretrial time served.

On the driving while impaired charge, Jones was sentenced to spend 120 days in jail, for which he was also given credit for time served.

Winner imposed a split sentence on the felony attempted child abuse charge, ordering Jones to serve five months active time, followed by a term of intensive probation which includes strict special conditions. Among those conditions, Jones is to complete anger management classes.

Assistant District Attorneys Vicki Teem and Jason Arnold accepted the plea on behalf of the state.

Teem is part of a grant-funded domestic violence task force which oversees the investigation and aggressive prosecution of domestic violence related cases. She told the court Wednesday that around Thanksgiving last year, Jones and his girlfriend were in a heated argument when the woman’s 9-month-old child was injured.

Jones admitted to an officer that he forcefully removed the child from his walker and that the two adults pulled and tugged on the child for a few seconds, said Teem. Hours later, the child’s great grandmother took him to the hospital where doctors determined he had a fractured leg.

The Haywood County Department of Social Services took custody of the child and placed him in the home with his biological father, where he seems to be doing well, Teem said.  There were no permanent injuries.

Days later after the abuse occurred, Haywood County Sheriff’s Deputies initiated a traffic stop of Jones’ vehicle on U.S. 276 pursuant to eight outstanding warrants for his arrest, Arnold said. Jones gave chase, exceeding the speed limit and driving recklessly to avoid the deputy. Once stopped, Jones tried to tackle the arresting deputy and pushed him down, resulting in additional charges for felony flee to elude arrest, misdemeanor driving while impaired and assault on an officer.

Jones pleaded to those charges weeks ago, but sentencing was delayed until Wednesday.

Per the plea arrangement with the state, additional charges stemming from alleged domestic violence against Jones girlfriend were dismissed. Prosecutors said they were unable to get the woman to testify in court, that without her cooperation, prosecuting the domestic charges would have been difficult.