From AP, staff reports

PINEVILLE, Mo. -- A man who said he would submit only to biblical law, not to man's law, was convicted of two criminal charges after awaiting trial for nearly three years.

After a one-day trial, a McDonald County jury deliberated about an hour Thursday before convicting Robert Joos Jr. of resisting arrest and unlawful use of a weapon.

Joos, 43, calls himself pastor of the Sacerdotal Order of the David Company.

He had been held in McDonald County Jail awaiting trial since June 29, 1994, when two state troopers stopped him on a county road near his 200-acre church retreat at Powell to arrest him for a 1987 misdemeanor conviction.

Prosecutors said Joos resisted when members of the Missouri State Highway Patrol attempted to arrest him that day. Joos also was accused of having a .32-caliber pistol in the vehicle when troopers ordered him to get out. During a struggle with the officers, they said he attempted to reach for the gun.

Officers had waited just outside Joos' property in eastern McDonald County that day to arrest him on a warrant for "simulating legal process." Joos was convicted of serving a state trooper with a false restraining order that he had forged. The warrant for his arrest was issued in 1987 after the Missouri Supreme Court rejected his appeal of the misdemeanor conviction. He had been a fugitive since then.

When Joos left the property in June 1994 driving a van, he was blocked by the patrolman with one marked vehicle and one unmarked vehicle.

Joos contended he did not know who they were or why they blocked his vehicle. Once they did identify themselves, he said, they had their guns drawn and he did not get out of the vehicle because he was afraid.

Joos remained in jail in part because he refused to leave his cell for hearings.

Joos has the right to submit a motion asking for a new trial. He has up to 25 days to make that motion before sentencing will be considered.

In August, Judge Kenneth Romines offered Joos a sentence of time already served in exchange for a plea of no contest. But Joos opted to face trial on the charges, saying he refused to admit guilt.

Joos also awaits trial on unrelated charges of possessing a machine-gun and explosives.

Page 9A, Saturday, March 29, 1997