Hearing postponed for Modesto man convicted of holding girlfriend captive

A Modesto man facing 25 years to life in prison will have to wait another week before his motion for a new trial can be heard, because his court-appointed attorney wasn’t available Wednesday and sent another attorney in his place.

Alvin Bernard Jones, 46, was convicted several months ago for punching his girlfriend and holding her captive in a Modesto motel room after she tried to leave to feed her children.

John Carty, Jones’ defense attorney, filed the motion seeking a new trial for his client and was scheduled Wednesday morning to present his argument in court. Carty was not able to attend the hearing. He instead sent Roland Thé, an associate attorney at Carty’s Stockton-based firm, to argue for the new trial motion.

Stanislaus Superior Court Judge Dawna Reeves told Thé that she was not going to proceed with the hearing without Carty, who was appointed to represent Jones.

When a defendant can’t afford his or her own attorney, the court appoints an attorney paid for by the taxpayers. When the Public Defender’s Office has a conflict of interest, the court selects from a list of private attorneys qualified to be appointed on a criminal case.

The judge said she wasn’t questioning Thé’s qualifications, but that he wasn’t appointed to defend Jones in court and wasn’t listed on a panel of private attorneys who can be appointed.

Thé said he will assist Carty in court when he argues for the new trial motion. When discussing a new date for the hearing, Thé told the judge that he and Carty are starting a civil trial in Tuolumne County on April 27 that was estimated to last 10 days.

Deputy District Attorney Beth O’Hara De Jong asked the judge to delay the new trial motion hearing only until next week because the defendant’s sentencing hearing has been postponed before.

Reeves scheduled Jones to return to court April 23 for his new trial motion to be heard. Jones remains in custody at the Stanislaus County jail.

The defendant has three violent felony convictions, which make him eligible for a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison under the state’s “three-strikes” law.

A jury in late August found Jones guilty of battery on a cohabitant, making criminal threats, false imprisonment, vehicle theft and possessing methamphetamine, according to prosecutors.

The incident involving Jones and his girlfriend occurred April 14, 2014, at the Vagabond Inn motel on McHenry Avenue in central Modesto. Modesto police Officer Austin Wilson arrived at the motel about 9 p.m. and spotted a woman with a bloody nose and no shirt. The woman was running toward the officer.

The woman told police she had been held in her motel room against her will for several hours by her boyfriend, Jones, De Jong has said. The girlfriend had asked for her car keys because she wanted to go to the Modesto Gospel Mission, where her kids could get something to eat. The shelter serves food to needy and homeless people. Her children were not with her inside the motel room.

Jones was angered that his girlfriend wanted to leave, and he became violent. He punched the woman in the nose, threatened to kill her and tackled her when she tried to leave, according to De Jong.

The woman escaped from the motel room when Jones answered a knock at the door, and she ran to the motel manager’s office.

Jones left the area in his girlfriend’s car. Eight days later, California Highway Patrol Officer Phillip De Prater spotted Jones driving the car. The CHP officer found that Jones had meth in his pocket, authorities have said.

This story was originally published April 15, 2015 at 4:17 PM with the headline "Hearing postponed for Modesto man convicted of holding girlfriend captive."