McCary accepts plea agreement

A local man accused of enticing children into his van at the Clarendon ballpark last summer accepted a plea deal to a lesser charge late Tuesday, August 20.

Joe Brian McCary pled “no contest” to the Class C misdemeanor of Attempted Enticement of a Child after his defense attorney asked for a directed verdict part way through a jury trial.

County Attorney Landon Lambert represented the state and was seeking a verdict on a Class B misdemeanor of Enticement of a Child, which would have carried a a maximum 180 days in jail.

McCary reportedly lured three small girls into his van on Saturday, May 19, 2012, during a local little league game. The mother of one of the girls testified Tuesday that she became concerned when her son and daughter did not return quickly from going to the restroom. She went looking for them and found her son outside a white van and her daughter with two other girls inside the van on McCary’s lap. The woman said she immediately retrieved her kids and scolded them and told the other girls to get to their parents right away.

The daughter, who is now five years old, later testified that McCary had told her to come look at his flower stickers and gave her chewing gum.

McCary was arrested two days later.

After the state presented its case, defense attorney Earl Griffin moved for a directed verdict because he said the state had not proved in any way that McCary had interfered with the custody of the child, which the statute requires. He also cited case law of other cases – including one where a teen girl had been lured with alcohol to a hotel to have sex – where the issue of custody also prevented an Enticement conviction.

District Judge Stuart Messer, who was hearing the case for County Judge Jack Hall, announced that he was taking the defense motion under advisement, and the parties in the case then conferred outside the presence of the jury. The parties later returned, the jury was called back in, and Lambert announced the plea agreement.

Prior to the jury returning to the room, Judge Messer told the defendant his behavior was “despicable.”

In addition to paying a $200 fine and $67 in court costs, McCary agreed not to go near the victims’ homes and not to go on the grounds of the Clarendon Independent School District.

Two related cases against McCary stemming from the same incident were dismissed.