GC man faces meth, theft charges

By: 
Robert Maharry

 A Grundy Center man will stand trial on charges of possessing methamphetamine and stealing a vehicle trailer beginning next month.
           
Michael Bruce Johns, age 27, of Grundy Center, has already been arrested three times in Grundy County this year: once by the Grundy Center Police Department on February 3 on a warrant out of Marshalltown for Vehicle Theft, again on February 8 by the sheriff’s department on another Marshalltown warrant for Failure to Report to the Department of Corrections for Pretrial Supervision (during which officers allegedly found methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia in his home) and on March 31, when the GCPD pulled him over and took him to jail on a Grundy County warrant for Second Degree Theft.
 
Johns was bonded out on April 7, and he has pleaded not guilty to the drug charges. A jury trial will begin on July 12 unless his plea changes before that date, and a motion for arraignment in the theft case has been continued until June 12. That trial date has not yet been set.
 
According to Sheriff Rick Penning, the theft incident allegedly occurred in rural Holland and involved an 8'x16' trailer (valued at more than $1,000 but less than $10,000) taken from an unoccupied property near the cemetery. Despite his young age, Johns has a lengthy list of prior offenses: just last month, he was found guilty of having no valid driver’s license and driving under suspension, and other convictions include two separate Open Container incidents, two instances of Possession or Purchase of Alcohol by a Person Under 21, Possession of Marijuana, and Operating While Intoxicated in 2012, all in Grundy County. 
 
Possession of a Controlled Substance—repeat offense is a serious misdemeanor punishable by a sentence of at least two days of imprisonment, and the drug paraphernalia charge constitutes a simple misdemeanor. Second Degree Theft is a Class D felony. 
 
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