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Man pleads guilty to assaulting Dunkard Township business owner

3 min read
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A Greene County man accused of trying to kill a business owner when he assaulted him inside a Dunkard Township auto parts store during a botched burglary pleaded guilty to lesser charges Tuesday.

Gregory M. McClead pleaded guilty in Greene County Court to felony charges of aggravated assault and burglary, but prosecutors dropped the most serious count of attempted homicide in exchange for his plea.

While McClead pleaded to the lesser charges, he will still spend a lengthy amount of time in a state prison after his sentenced was tacked onto two other unrelated convictions.

McClead, 44, of Dunkard Township, was accused by state police of burglarizing Jordan’s Auto Parts in May 2020 before attacking the business owner, David Jordan, when he was caught inside the store.

Jordan went to his store at 217 Moffit Road near Dilliner when its security alarms alerted him of an intruder, and he pulled a handgun on McClead, who attempted to turn the weapon around on the business owner, but it did not fire.

McClead punched Jordan, causing the business owner to fall and hit his head off of a vehicle’s engine block. Jordan suffered a broken orbital bone, a laceration on the back of his scalp and bleeding on his brain, according to court documents.

State police found a fleece mask McClead wore during the attack and an empty soda pop bottle that they used to match his DNA to the scene. However, he wasn’t charged in the case until August 2021, although he had already been jailed for several months on an unrelated case.

As part of his plea in the auto parts burglary and assault, President Judge Lou Dayich sentenced McClead to 6 ½ to 13 years in prison. However, McClead had already been convicted and sentenced on charges of receiving stolen property and contraband in two unrelated cases in which he was facing 6 to 13 years in prison. Dayich ordered McClead to serve the sentences consecutively, meaning he will be spent 12 ½ to 26 years in a state prison.

McClead appeared for his plea hearing and sentencing through video conferencing from the Greene County jail. He answered Dayich’s questions about the case, but made no comment about the assault. McClead has been jailed since January 2021, and he will be given credit for time served.

Jordan did not attend the hearing and apparently did not ask for any restitution for medical bills he incurred from the attack.

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