Carl Junction man receives shock prison time for exploitation of elderly woman

A Jasper County judge sentenced a Carl Junction man this week to 120 days of shock time in prison on convictions for financial exploitation of an elderly woman and tampering with a victim and a witness in another case.

Marco K. Jeffries, 28, pleaded guilty to the two counts March 28 in Jasper County Circuit Court in a plea deal with the prosecutor's office that capped the prison time he might receive at five years and dismissed burglary and stealing charges that he was facing.

Circuit Judge Gayle Crane accepted the deal at a hearing Monday and assessed Jeffries five years on each count with the terms to run concurrently and be served in the state's shock-incarceration program, which calls for court review after 120 days for possible placement on probation.

The judge also ordered Jeffries to have no contact with the victims in any of his cases and no business contacts with anyone older than 60. He also must begin paying $47,725 in restitution to the victims in the exploitation case involving a 77-year-old Joplin woman with senile dementia and in the Carl Junction burglary and stealing case that was dismissed.

Jeffries deceived the Joplin woman by offering to remove scrap metal and trash from her property while actually making off with a Harley-Davidson motorcycle worth $7,000, a pop-up camper worth $2,000 and tools worth $5,000, according to police and court reports.

The defendant picked up the tampering charge in November 2014 when he approached both the victim and a witness in a Carl Junction burglary case, trying to convince the victim that someone else committed the crime and to get the witness to change his testimony in his favor.

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Carl Junction man receives shock prison time for exploitation of elderly woman