Rural Aurora man takes plea deal in domestic assault case
Jul. 17—MOUNT VERNON, Mo. — A rural Aurora man took a plea deal this week in a felony domestic assault case and received suspended sentences and probation.
Orville Louis White Eyes Jr., 50, pleaded guilty Monday in Lawrence County Circuit Court to a reduced charge of second-degree domestic assault and to a count of first-degree stalking in a plea agreement allowing suspended sentences.
Circuit Judge David Cole accepted the plea deal and assessed the defendant seven years on the domestic assault conviction and three years for stalking with execution of the sentences suspended and the defendant placed on supervised probation for five years.
White Eyes had faced a count of first-degree domestic assault and additional counts of armed criminal action and tampering with a witness in the case.
A probable-cause affidavit filed in the case states that the defendant attacked his girlfriend on April 24, 2020, at her residence in Aurora, shoving her to the floor of a shed three times, hitting her with a metal pipe and kicking her in the stomach. She told police that he had been driving by her place several times and she feared he might return and harm her or her children.
Jeff Lehr is a reporter for The Joplin Globe.
