By Jeff Lehr

jlehr@joplinglobe.com

A Webb City man was sentenced Monday to 30 years in prison for a crime spree two years ago that culminated in a vehicular assault on a state trooper.

At a hearing in Jasper County Circuit Court in Joplin, Circuit Judge Gayle Crane assessed George B. McDonald, 35, seven years on each of two convictions for stealing credit cards and two convictions for tampering with a motor vehicle, and four years each on convictions for attempted theft of a vehicle and resisting arrest.

The judge also sentenced McDonald to a 30-year term for assaulting Sgt. Mike Bryan of the Missouri State Highway Patrol and ordered that the sentences run concurrently. McDonald was convicted on all seven counts by a Jasper County jury in a two-day trial that concluded Oct. 30.

The defendant’s crime spree began Jan. 29, 2007, with the theft of a Mitsubishi car from an employee of Hank’s Furniture, George Sarson Jr. The car, which contained Sarson’s wallet, driver’s license and credit card, eventually was abandoned by McDonald and recovered by police. But the victim’s wallet and its contents remained missing.

McDonald next stole a van belonging to a business and broke into a car parked outside the home of Ashley Erdman in Asbury. Erdman’s purse containing a credit card and bank debit card was stolen from the vehicle.

The crime spree continued Feb. 1, 2007, when McDonald came across a Mazda car in a ditch along Missouri Highway 171, south of Asbury. The car’s owner, John Crandon, had been forced to abandon the car there when it slid off the highway during an ice storm the previous night.

McDonald parked the stolen van along the highway and was going through the abandoned Mazda when Bryan, the state trooper, came upon the scene in his patrol car.

McDonald initially tried to claim that he was helping a friend get his car out of the ditch and was waiting for a tow truck. Bryan became suspicious when he spotted a rear window of the Mazda broken out and came across Sarson’s driver’s license in a wallet McDonald had on him.

McDonald tried to flee, and the state trooper tackled him twice, scuffling with him in the ditch before McDonald broke free, jumped in the van and tried to take off. As he did, the vehicle knocked the state trooper back into the ditch before becoming stuck, forcing McDonald to try to flag down another vehicle to escape.

The defendant eventually was caught by Bryan with the help of two tow truck drivers who arrived on the scene.

Trooper injured