By Jeff Lehr
jlehr@joplinglobe.com
Two men changed their pleas to guilty Monday in Jasper County Circuit Court on charges of failing to register as sex offenders.
Clay E. Herring, 53, pleaded guilty to the registration offense and to a second count of receiving stolen property. Herring changed his pleas to guilty in an agreement with the Jasper County prosecutor’s office that would dismiss a third felony count of stealing.
Court records state that Herring was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child in 1993 in Dallas County, Texas, and was required to register as a sex offender in that state before moving to Missouri.
Herring registered with the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department on April 24, 2009, and listed 3524 N. Central City Road as his address, according to a probable-cause affidavit. But a compliance check by a sheriff’s deputy showed that he had moved to another address in May 2009 without informing the sheriff’s office, according to the affidavit.
The defendant was charged in August of last year with being in possession of several thousand dollars worth of ladders, saws and other tools that had been stolen from a vehicle in Carthage. At least one of the items had been pawned at a shop in Joplin.
He also was charged with stealing from a 76-year-old woman who paid him $7,000 for home repairs that either had not been properly completed or involved overcharges, according to another probable-cause affidavit.
Herring faces up to five years in prison in the registration case and up to seven years for receiving stolen property.
In a separate case, Bobby J. McGrady, 28, pleaded guilty to failure to register as a sex offender. McGrady’s plea was entered in accordance with an agreement with the prosecutor’s office that would limit the prison time he might be assessed to no more than three years.
McGrady was convicted in 1999 in Barton County, Kan., of aggravated indecent solicitation of a minor, and he has a conviction in Texas for failure to register as a sex offender, according to court records. A compliance check in October of last year showed that he was not living at the address of 607 N. Pearl Ave. in Joplin that he had provided to the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department.
