Trial ordered for YC teacher

Alena Jones, the Yuba City school teacher charged with pointing a gun at two repossession agents, is heading to trial.

In a preliminary hearing Friday, Sutter County Judge Chris Chandler ruled there's enough evidence to try Jones on felony charges of assault with a firearm and making death threats. He scheduled her arraignment for 9 a.m. Feb. 23.

The soft-spoken Andros Karperos Middle School teacher referred questions to her attorney as she left the courtroom.

"Repo" agent Lorelei Fountain testified Jones came out of her Wilson Avenue home with a chrome-plated semiautomatic handgun and followed her and her husband, Gregory Fountain, down a driveway and off her property, repeatedly raising the gun at them and saying, "I'm gonna shoot you."

As he backed away in their pickup, Jones waved the gun back and forth at the windshield, first at him, then at his wife in the passenger seat, Gregory Fountain said.

No other witness testified that Jones had the gun when she came out of the house, including her adoptive son, Willie Morrow.

But Morrow told police earlier that Jones did in fact have the gun when she came out her front door, prosecutor Cameron King told the judge.

Police found the gun in a dresser drawer in Jones' bedroom. Six bullets were in the magazine but the chamber was empty.

Lorelei Fountain said she went to Jones' door about 10 p.m. Dec. 12 while her husband waited in their pickup, announcing that she was there to take Jones' Mercedes-Benz, which had been used as collateral for a loan.

Jones parted a curtain on a window next to the door and repeatedly said, "There's nothing here for you," Fountain testified.

Gregory Fountain said that when he tried going to the door, Jones had the gun in her right hand when she parted the curtain. Jones had the 10-year-old Mercedes-Benz locked in her garage. After the Fountains left and before police arrived, she had a family friend, Douglas Penner, drive it to Marysville.

In referring to the car, Jones said, "That's my baby," Penner testified.

King told the judge that Jones, who has no criminal record, has been a valued member of society.

"But people do bad things and they need to be held accountable," he said.

Jones "overreacted egregiously," King said.

Jones spent 11 days in jail after her arrest. She is free on $50,000 bail.

Jones' attorney, Geoffrey Wander, said in an interview after the hearing that he had expected the charges to at least be reduced to misdemeanors.

In the courtroom, Wander argued the Fountains were guilty of trespassing after Jones told Lorelei Fountain to leave.

Lorelei Fountain testified that Jones did not tell her to leave. But she told a police officer something different immediately after the incident, Wander told the judge.

Wander said he will ask for a jury trial and that he expects Jones to be exonerated.

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Rob Young at 749-4710 or at ryoung@appealdemocrat.com.