Poplar Bluff man sentenced to prison for vehicle assault

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. -- A Poplar Bluff man was sentenced to prison Monday afternoon for an assault in which he was accused of striking another man with his vehicle and then apparently spinning its tires on top of him.

Jerry Oliver Stewart, 47, was convicted of a Dec. 1, 2008, incident outside Poplar Bluff's Main Street bar that left Gary Eugene Lawrence seriously injured.

Stewart was found guilty in November of the felonies of first-degree assault, armed criminal action and leaving the scene of an accident by a Cape Girardeau County jury.

That same jury recommended Stewart be sentenced to 10 years on the assault charge, three years on the armed criminal action charge and six months on the leaving the scene charge.

After reviewing a sentencing assessment report completed by probation and parole, Presiding Circuit Judge William Syler followed the recommendations of the jury and the report in sentencing Stewart, according to Butler County assistant prosecuting attorney Paul Oesterreicher.

Syler, Oesterreicher said, ordered the sentences to run concurrently under the 120-day shock incarceration program.

Should Syler order Stewart to stay in prison, he will have to serve 85 percent of his 10-year sentence on the assault charge before he would be eligible for

parole.

At the trial, the state's evidence included witnesses who ran out into the street and saw Stewart's truck sitting with Lawrence underneath, according to earlier reports. Those same witnesses reportedly watched as Stewart squealed his tires and backed over Stewart.

One witness reportedly was walking down the sidewalk and saw Stewart's truck parked at Cedar and Main, with Lawrence standing next to the driver's side window.

"She heard the tires squealing and saw the victim on the front, passenger side of the truck; then, he went down under it," Butler County Prosecuting Attorney Kevin Barbour said after the trial. "(Stewart) came around the corner and hit a van. She says [Stewart] got out and looked. He says he didn't."

It was at that point, the woman yelled for someone to call 911 and an ambulance, Barbour said. "That's when everyone else, including the woman who witnessed [the assault] initially, watched [Stewart] back over him," he said.

Barbour said Lawrence also testified about the assault and his injuries. "He had scars all over him; he lost a kidney," he said.

Lawrence's arm, Barbour said, is "messed up. It will require more surgery."

According to Barbour, Lawrence has what he described as a web between his forearm and bicep from all the scar tissue.

The defense's argument wasn't "I didn't do it [but] I didn't intend to do it. The evidence was to the contrary of that except for [Stewart's] testimony," Barbour said.

Stewart, who testified on his own behalf, "got up and said it was technically an accident," Barbour said.