Ewing's sentence reduced after entering plea agreement

At the end of 2017, Holton resident Jacob Ewing had been sentenced to a total of more than 34 years in prison after juries in two different Jackson County District Court trials found Ewing guilty of sex-related crimes and other offenses.

But after Ewing’s conviction in one of the trials was overturned by the Kansas State Court of Appeals and a plea agreement in which Ewing entered “Alford pleas” — asserting innocence, but admitting that prosecutorial evidence could be enough to sway a judge or jury in favor of conviction — on two charges of aggravated sexual battery, his 27 1/2-year sentence in that particular conviction was reduced to 10 years.

On Friday, Kansas Second District Judge Jeff Elder accepted the plea deal but ruled that Ewing’s total sentence in his convictions would be, at most, 10 years from that day forward, pursuant to the plea agreement.

The 10-year sentence will run concurrently with a 7 1/2-year sentence Ewing received in a different trial in 2017, rather than consecutively, as was ordered with the original sentence by District Court Judge Norbert Marek.

Friday’s sentencing hearing brought an apparent end to the process of appealing the 2017 convictions, one of which was overturned following a finding of “prosecutorial misconduct” in the Ewing trials by special prosecutor Jacqie Spradling, who is now facing disbarment at the hands of the Kansas Supreme Court following the recent recommendation of a disciplinary panel.

According to statements read in court during the sentencing hearing, the plea agreement was protested by one of Ewing’s alleged victims and the mother of another alleged victim.

Ewing’s mother, Wendy Ewing, also said she took no relief in the reduced sentence for her son.

“I still believe he’s innocent,” Wendy Ewing said after the hearing. “I believe the justice system has failed us.”

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