By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
A now-former Glasgow police officer facing a misdemeanor domestic-violence charge pleaded guilty to a different charge on Wednesday.
James Vickery was arrested Jan. 18 and charged with fourth-degree assault, (domestic violence), no visible injury, a Class A misdemeanor, which carries a potential jail term of up to a year. He was released from the Barren County Detention Center the same date with a $500 unsecured bond. He was initially placed on paid administrative leave from the Glasgow Police Department, where he had been a sworn officer since July.
Vickery pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in February before Steven Crebessa, the special judge appointed in the case after local District Judge Gabe Pendleton recused himself. Barren County Attorney Mike Richardson also recused himself from prosecuting the case.
Crebessa is the district judge for Breckinridge, Meade and Grayson counties, so proceedings have taken place via the Zoom streaming service. During a Grayson District Court pretrial conference Wednesday, defense attorney Olivia Hester told the judge they had negotiated a plea agreement with the Kentucky Office of the Attorney General, which did not appear to be present for the proceeding.
She said her client would plead guilty to menacing, with the prosecution recommending a six-month sentence that would be fully probated for 24 months on the condition that Vickery enroll in and complete anger management classes.
Kentucky law states, “A person is guilty of menacing when he intentionally places another person in reasonable apprehension of imminent physical injury.” It is a Class B misdemeanor.
With that, Crebessa swore in Vickery as a witness, restating the plan for the plea that Hester had mentioned and adding as a condition of the probation that Vickery not commit any other offenses, confirming with the defendant that that was his understanding of the agreement. After Crebessa advised Vickery of the rights he would be waiving with a guilty plea and got assurance from him that he had ample opportunity to discuss the agreement with his legal counsel, which also includes Alan Simpson, Vickery then entered the plea.
Crebessa ordered Vickery to pay court costs of $193 to be paid by Oct. 8; if it is not paid in full by then, Vickery is to appear in court or face a bench warrant.
City employment
GPD Chief Guy Howie told Glasgow News 1 on Wednesday that Vickery was only on paid leave for a couple of days. After that, Howie had him working at the department on other types of duties while the situation was pending adjudication.
“Instead of sending him home on vacation getting paid, I removed his law enforcement functions and made him come here and work,” the chief said.
He said he knew for weeks that Vickery had been talking with his attorney, trying to get things worked out, but he also knew that if Vickery pleaded guilty to either the original charge or any other that was a “charge of aggression,” Vickery could no longer be a sworn officer with the GPD.
The person who had been the city’s park ranger, which is not a law-enforcement position and does not involve carrying a firearm but is situated within the police department, had given his two-weeks notice to Howie. Friday was his last day. Howie had already assigned Vickery to that role on an interim basis. On Friday afternoon, Vickery submitted his resignation from the position of police officer, effective the following Monday. Howie appointed him to the position of park ranger permanently, subject to the standard one-year probationary period, the police chief told GN1.
“I suspected that when he told me he was resigning, that there was some sort of a plea deal in the works that would have included a crime of aggression,” the chief said, adding that he did not know the details of any such agreement and his hiring Vickery for the park ranger job was not contingent upon that in any way.
When GN1 told Howie about the terms of the plea agreement, he said Vickery had already been taking an anger management class anyway, but menacing is considered a crime of aggression, so Vickery would not have been allowed to remain a police officer with this department.
The chief said there was no emergency protective order or domestic violence order in place that would have prohibited Vickery from carrying a firearm and thus would have made it impossible for him to be an officer, so if the criminal charge had been dropped, Vickery could have continued on in that capacity.
“I would have required that he attend some sort of anger-management counseling and probably extended his probation,” Howie said. “And I will say that it’s unfortunate that this happened, because Officer Vickery was doing a great job. He was well on his way to being a great cop.”
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