Armed teacher guilty in repo case

Sutter County jurors Thursday found Yuba City school teacher Alena Jones guilty of assaulting a repossession agent with a gun and threatening him, both felonies.

Jones, who taught at Andros Karperos Middle School for five years, left Judge Brian Aronson's courtroom in tears.

"How could people make a mistake like that? This is my life," she said.

Jurors deliberated three hours.

Jones pointed a handgun at agents Greg Fountain, who came to her home the night of Dec. 12 to repossess her 1989 Mercedes Benz.

Aronson set a sentencing date of Oct. 2. Jones remains free on $50,000 bail.

Although the maximum sentence is five years, eight months in prison, Jones will most likely spend time in Sutter County Jail if she is incarcerated, said the prosecutor in the case, Chief Trial Deputy Cameron King.

King said it was one of the most difficult cases he has prosecuted because Jones was a "sympathetic" defendant while the victim, being a repossession agent, was not.

The jury foreman, a Yuba City man who did not give his name, called the verdict "excruciating" because of the likely effect on Jones' teaching career.

Jones left her house and followed Fountain, pointing a .25-caliber semiautomatic handgun at him and saying, "I'm gonna shoot you," according to testimony. When Fountain reached his truck, Jones swung the handgun back and forth between him and his wife, Lorelei Fountain, also a repo agent.

Jones denied leaving the house.

In his closing argument to the jury, King said Jones went too far to keep the repo agents from taking the Mercedes-Benz she loved and called "baby."

Jones and members of her family committed perjury on the witness stand so she would not lose her job with the Yuba City Unified School District, King said.

"Is Alena Jones a bad person? No one's saying that. But that night she did something that was wrong," King said.

Jones wanted to make sure the repo agents never came back for her beloved car, so she picked up the gun, aimed it at agent Greg Fountain and "marched" him off her property, King said.

A witness who testified on Jones' behalf, Douglas Penner, is "a stone cold liar," King said.

Penner, a friend of Jones' son, Christopher, testified at a January preliminary hearing that she called the Mercedes "baby." Later, Penner apparently realized he had damaged Jones' case and testified she used the term "baby" indiscriminately for cars and other things, King said.

That was "a whopper of a lie," King said.

Jones herself testified with a laugh that she never used the term "baby."

Jones said that her adopted son, Willie Morrow, picked up a baseball bat for self-defense but stayed inside the house during the confrontation with Greg Fountain. But Fountain testified that Morrow had a bat — a fact he would not have known if Morrow had not come outside, King said.

Physical evidence in the case does not support Jones' version of events. She claimed repo agents tried to break open both her front door and garage door, but neither door had any noticeable damage, King said.

"All the little pieces don't fit. That's how you know it's a lie," King said.

Jones' attorney, Arturo Marquez, told jurors that Jones may have overreacted.

"This case is all about credibility, not what is reasonable," Marquez said.

"What was it like at 10:30 p.m. Dec. 12 for Mrs. Jones. Did she act reasonably? Maybe she didn't, but under the circumstances ... ," he said.

Marquez questioned Greg Fountain's credibility, calling him a convicted felon. He referred to Fountain's 1985 conviction for walking away from a work project to which he'd been assigned after being found guilty of selling a small amount of marijuana.

Fountain's record has been clean since 1985, according to testimony.

Jones, a teacher for six years, has no criminal record.

"Can you honestly believe that Mrs. Jones would get up there and commit perjury to protect her job?" Marquez asked jurors.

Marquez suggested the Fountains may have realized they'd gone too far in trying to intimidate Jones into handing over the keys to the Mercedes and therefore told police she pointed the gun.

"Some of the witnesses tried to help her out but they weren't very good," said the jury foreman, calling their testimony inconsistent.