A 41-year-old Lincoln man has been sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison on a felony weapons charge discovered after a late-night assault in a bank.
Derreck Jones maintained it wasn't what it looked like.
But his attorney, Brett McArthur, said Jones chose to plead no contest to possession of a deadly weapon by a prohibited person rather than risk being found guilty of the charge and two other drug possession charges because prosecutors had filed a habitual criminal enhancement against him since he had at least two prior felony convictions.
Jones previously served time for an attempted murder and an attempted sexual assault of a child, both out of Douglas County.
In exchange for Jones' plea in this case, prosecutors dropped the two drug charges.
According to the Lancaster County Attorney's Office, Jones' latest case followed an incident overnight Sept. 19 discovered after a bank branch manager arrived the next morning to find a knife and drops of blood on the walls and floor of the bank.
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Video footage offered into evidence at sentencing showed a cleaning woman being struck several times and threatened with a knife by a man later identified as Jones.
On Monday, McArthur said the woman was Jones' girlfriend and says now they had been acting out a fantasy and asked for a sentence near the 10-year mandatory minimum.
Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Erica Pruess said the video "speaks for itself."
In the end, Lancaster County District Judge Jodi Nelson said Jones and the woman can try to explain it in whatever way they want that makes sense to them.
"But I've watched the video and their explanation has pretty much zero credibility in terms of what I see in that video," she said.
And there's no question that a weapon was involved, Nelson said.
Then, she sentenced him to 10 to 20 years in prison. With the enhancement, Jones will have to serve at least 10 years before he gets credit for good-time toward parole.
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