30 year old Jordan Evans is a free man after a Wabash County Jury on Wednesday found him not guilty of three felony counts related to an alleged altercation with an Illinois State Police trooper last year.
Evans faced a Class 2 felony charge of aggravated intimidation, a Class 4 felony charge of aggravated assault; and a Class X charge of armed violence, which carried a possible prison term of 6 to 30 years.
During the one day trial, Trooper Adrian Meyer was state’s attorney Kelli Storckman’s first witness. He testified that on November 5th of last year, he was at the Wash ‘n Go Car Wash on West 9th Street when Evans approached him and threatened and intimidated him verbally and aggressively displayed a hatchet Evans had attached to his pants. Meyer said he and Evans are both from Lawrence County originally and knew each other casually from their school days.
Evans testified this afternoon he was friends in school with Meyer’s wife and had simply approached Meyer at the car wash hoping to say hello to his wife. Evans said Meyer’s testimony was wrong in the fact he didn’t have a hatchet attached to his pants and instead had it laying in his car from a planned hiking trip. He claimed he never threatened Meyer in any way.
In addition to Meyer and Evans, the only other witnesses to testify today were former Mt. Carmel Police officer Daniel Hopper, and 911 dispatcher Mary Sweppy.
The jury began their deliberations just before 3:30pm and returned the verdict in about 30 minutes.
Evans was represented by public defender Bill Easton….
Evans had been held in the Wabash County Jail awaiting trial and following the not guilty verdicts, Judge Denton Aud ordered he immediately be released from custody.
In a separate case, Evans still faces felony charges of threatening a public official and calling a false alarm or complaint to 911 along with a misdemeanor assault charge. A pretrial conference on those charges was set for November 25th.