Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By RICHARD JENKINS
Bessemer — An Ironwood Township man who had a standoff with police officers last year pleaded guilty to two felonies in Gogebic County Circuit Court last week.
Leonard John Hellier, 49, pleaded guilty to two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon — or felonious assault — Nov. 6 as part of a plea agreement.
The agreement calls for Hellier’s sentence be limited to probation and the time served since his May 16, 2017, arrest.
Hellier was taken into custody after a standoff at his Vanderhagen Road property, north of Airport Road.
The roughly three-hour standoff began after Gogebic County Sheriff’s Department deputies responded to a report of an dispute between Hellier and a neighbor.
He refused to cooperate with responding officers, according to a press release from Gogebic County Sheriff Pete Matonich at the time, eventually barricading himself inside his residence. Following the breakdown of negotiations, officers and members of the Gogebic Iron SWAT team breached the residence.
Hellier was taken into custody following a struggle.
He had originally been charged with five felony counts — two counts of assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder, two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of carrying a dangerous weapon with unlawful intent.
Amended charges were filed last week, combining several of the charges into the two felonies Hellier pleaded to.
Hellier was originally ruled not competent to stand trial in August 2017 and later sent to a Michigan Department of Health and Human Services facility downstate in Ypsilanti in an effort to restore competency.
Competency and criminal responsibility are the two prongs to an insanity, or diminished capacity, defense in the state of Michigan.
He was found to have regained competency, or able to stand trial and assist with his own defense, in July, however the question of criminal responsibility — or whether a mental disease or defect prevents someone from being held responsible for their actions while committing a crime — still needed to be decided. That opinion was issued Oct. 1.
Hellier is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 10.
