20-year-old Jabin Bullock pleaded guilty in October to first-degree burglary for an incident in which the mother of a friend was held hostage in her own home back in August.

Bullock insisted he was acting as a lookout when two other co-defendants ransacked the woman’s house while she was held at gunpoint. He told investigators that because he “hadn’t done enough,” he was shot by a co-defendant.

As we previously reported, Capt. Jeff Wilson said a man reported being shot while walking down a street in midtown and hit in the buttocks during crossfire between two vehicles around that time frame.  At that time, Wilson said the particulars as to how he was shot were questionable.

Judge Daniel Kellogg ordered Bullock to serve an eight-year sentence.

Another suspect in the investigation, 16-year-old Te’Avion Hawkins, was charged as an adult and appeared in court Tuesday. A third suspect, age 15, is being adjudicated as a juvenile.

A St. Joseph woman with a lengthy list of priors will serve at least 120 days behind bars for biting a store security officer who caught her shoplifting.

Catherine Wells pleaded guilty in October to a class-b felony charge of second-degree robbery. Court documents asserted that Wells was confronted by a loss-prevention officer outside the JC Penney store at the East Hills Shopping Center August 24. An affidavit states that she had “concealed unpaid items of clothing” and “tried to bite the loss-prevention officer and flee the scene.”

Judge Daniel Kellogg ordered a sentenced of nine years in prison, citing a lengthy record of drug and stealing convictions. Judge Kellogg retains jurisdiction in the case and could place Wells on probation at that time.

A 49-year-old man pleaded guilty Thursday to setting a pair of cars on fire at the St. Jo Frontier Casino.

Michael Simpson was charged after several vehicles were burned on the night of October 1st. There were other vehicles elsewhere in the neighborhood that also sustained fire damage that night.

Circuit Judge Daniel Kellogg accepted Simpson’s guilty plea Thursday to charges of knowingly burning. The judge scheduled sentencing for January 12.

A St. Joseph man is due back in court next month after allegedly crashing a stolen Mustang into a Drug Strike Force vehicle.

As we previously reported, Daniel Embrey was charged as a prior and persistent offender with tampering and resisting arrest after an incident in October.

Embrey appeared in court Thursday for an arraignment, through his lawyer Embrey waived a formal arraignment and entered a plea of not guilty.

On Oct. 25, Strike Force investigators said they spotted a stolen Mustang in the parking lot of a south-side convenience store.  In court documents, officials said when they tried to make contact with the driver, he drove the vehicle into the strike force vehicle and then fled at high speed. Embrey was allegedly spotted latter and taken into custody several miles away.

He’s currently out on bail.

Nine more defendants have been indicted by a federal grand jury for their roles in a $1 million conspiracy to distribute at least 30 kilograms of methamphetamine, bringing the total number of defendants to 15 in an investigation that was initiated with an arrest by Buchanan County, Mo., sheriff’s deputies in St. Joseph, Mo.

Jake Ian Nixon, 19, Aaron Randall Stull, 51, and Michelle Vanne Gray, 49, all of Springfield, Mo.; Jarub Ray Baird, 27, of Carthage, Mo.; Breann Nicole Hall, 25, of Ozark, Mo.; Lanny Eugene Ham, 26, of Bakersfield, Calif.; Cindy Ann Nevatt, 62, of Gulf Shores, Ala.; and Autumn Sky Provience, 23, and Tara L. Harken, 44, both of Marion, Ill., were charged in a seven-count superseding indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Kansas City, Mo., on Nov. 17, 2016. Tammy Dickinson, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, says the superseding indictment replaces the original indictment returned on April 21, 2016, and includes additional charges.

The superseding indictment adds Nixon, Stull, Gray, Baird, Hall, Ham, Cindy Nevatt, Provience and Harken to the original conspiracy charge against Michael Ryan Nevatt (the son of Cindy Nevatt), 26, Kara Rene Baze, 23, and Scott Bryan Sands, 51, all of Springfield, Kenneth Bryant Lake, 55, of Strafford, Mo., Jerry Lee Brown, 43, of Lebanon, Mo., and Travis Lee Bethel, 45, of Urbana, Mo.

The federal indictment alleges that all 15 co-defendants participated in a conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine from Jan. 1, 2014, to Nov. 17, 2016. The indictment also contains a forfeiture allegation, which would require all of the defendants (jointly and severally) to forfeit to the government $1,060,070, which represents the proceeds of drug trafficking based on a conservative average street price of $1,000 per ounce of 90 percent pure methamphetamine and the total conspiracy distribution of at least 30 kilograms of methamphetamine.

All of the defendants are also charged in a money-laundering conspiracy. They allegedly conducted financial transactions which involved the proceeds of unlawful activity in order to promote the drug-trafficking conspiracy, to conceal the nature, source, location, ownership, and control of drug-trafficking proceeds and to avoid bank reporting requirements.

For example, the indictment alleges that Michael Nevatt purchased $13,000 in chips at the Grand Casino of Biloxi. The indictment also alleges that Michael Nevatt spent $16,000 to purchase a 2003 Corvette. Michael Nevatt is charged with three counts of money laundering related to these transactions.

In addition to the drug-trafficking and money-laundering conspiracies, Michael Nevatt is charged with Cindy Nevatt and Autumn Sky Provience in a conspiracy to possess and use various firearms during and in relation to the conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Michael Nevatt, Provience and Nixon are also charged together in one count of possessing firearms in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime. They allegedly possessed a loaded Colt .32-caliber handgun, a .22-caliber handgun, a loaded Kahr Arms 9mm semi-automatic pistol, a loaded Raven .25-caliber semi-automatic handgun, and a loaded Bond Arm .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun.

According to the affidavit filed in support of the original criminal complaint, a cooperating defendant was arrested by Buchanan County, Mo., sheriff’s deputies in St. Joseph, Mo., on July 20, 2015. The cooperating defendant, who was in possession of approximately 500 grams of methamphetamine and $5,000, allegedly identified Michael Nevatt as his source. The cooperating defendant accompanied Michael Nevatt to Dallas, Texas, on multiple occasions to obtain multiple-pound quantities of methamphetamine, which was then transported back to Missouri for distribution, according to the affidavit.

According to the affidavit, Michael Nevatt was the middle man between Mexican methamphetamine suppliers and southern Missouri distributors. A second confidential informant told investigators of a trip to Dallas with Michael Nevatt to pick up pound levels of methamphetamine approximately 20 to 30 times between October 2014 and July 2015. The methamphetamine allegedly was transported back to Springfield for distribution.