Jailed man refuses offer from judge

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by Steve McReynolds
Globe Neosho Bureau

PINEVILLE, Mo. -- After 26 months in the McDonald County Jail, Robert Joos could have been a free man today.

Judge Kenneth Romine offered Joos a sentence of time already served in exchange for a plea of no contest to a June 1994 charge of resisting arrest. But Joos opted at the hearing on Monday instead to face trial on the charge, saying he refused to admit guilt.

Joos consented to Romine's suggestions that he obtain a lawyer for his defense on the charges. He had been representing himself. That decision postponed his trial, which would have begun today. He remains in jail.

"The attorney general's office will have to get back with the judge on possible dates. I guess it's postponed indefinitely," said Gene Hall, circuit clerk.

The arrest of Joos on June 29, 1994, by Missouri Highway Patrol officers is said by authorities to be the reason why one of the officers, the late Bob Harper was shot on Sept. 16, 1994. A friend of Joos', Timothy Thomas Coombs, Witt Springs, Ark., is charged with shooting Harper, who survived but died of a heart attack on April 3, 1996. Coombs is a fugitive.

Former prosecutor, Joe Schoeberl, who filed the charge, told the Globe that Joos kicked Harper in the leg as he struggled with Harper and patrol Sgt. Steve Dorsey during the arrest. He also was charged with possessing a concealed, loaded .32-caliber handgun in his van. Both charges are class D felonies.

Schoeberl is now a judge in Jasper County. He was replaced as prosecutor in the Joos case by Bob Ahsens, assistant attorney general.

Joos filed numerous motions on Monday, all of which were denied by Romine, including motions to suppress evidence and to dismiss the charge.

"The judge advised him that if it went to a jury trial, he would be at a distinct disadvantage not being an attorney," Hall said. "Finally, at the end of the day he requested an attorney be appointed for him. The judge took it under advisement. He will either assign it to a private attorney or turn it over to a public defender.

The judge made several offers during the day that if he wanted to take an Alford (no-contest) plea, he (the judge) would probably sentence him to time served -- but he refused."

Joos served a 12-month sentence in the jail from June 1994 to June 1995, and has since been held in lieu of bond awaiting trial on unrelated charges of possessing a machine gun and explosives.

The warrant for Joos' arrest had been issued in 1987 after the Missouri Supreme Court turned down his appeal of a misdemeanor conviction.

In 1984, associates of Joos were involved in an incident in the parking lot of the courthouse in which shots were fired at trooper Merle Graham. Harper came to Graham's defense in that incident.

Later Joos was tried on a misdemeanor charge in connection with serving Graham with a false restraining order that he had forged. The order, purportedly from U.S. Western District Court at Kansas City, ordered Graham not to arrest one of Joos' friends on traffic and other charges. Joos was found guilty of the charge by a McDonald County jury and was sentenced to a year in the county jail.

Joos was a fugitive from 1987, when his appeal was turned down, until he was arrested outside the gate of his eastern McDonald County farm.

In an interview at the jail, Joos wouldn't tell where he spent the seven years or how he eluded capture.

According to Miles Parks, highway patrol investigator, Joos claims that his farm and friends are a church and that he is its pastor. He met Coombs at a meeting of tax protesters in Benton County, Ark. The day after Harper was shot, patrolmen searched the Joos farm. They were met at the gate by Coombs, who was carrying a rifle.

They searched Coombs' residence in Arkansas. Allegedly found at Coombs' place were rifle casings and slugs found outside Harper's home. Harper had been shot by someone who sat outside his house in a field, waiting for him to appear in the kitchen window.

Allegedly found in the search of Joos' property were a French machine gun from World War I and Dynamite. Those charges hadn't been set for trial on Monday.

Tuesday, August 27, 1996.


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