Former Green Lantern series writer Gerard Jones is set to change his plea to guilty with regards to multiple charges of the possession and distribution of child pornography at a hearing scheduled for Monday, April 2nd. Jones was originally arrested in December of 2016 and had originally plead not guilty to the charges and released on a $250,000 bond. While awaiting trial Jones has been under a home monitored curfew from 6pm to 7am with an ankle bracelet and attending regular group and individual therapy sessions. The trial was scheduled for this March but documents were filed which essentially cancelled the trial for the case pending a change of plea. The prosecution has noted that Jones will be pleading guilty to two felony counts of possession and distribution of child pornography.
The road to Jones’ fate involves Homeland Security and YouTube, culminating in the police investigation where thousand of images and videos were uncovered on Jones’ home computer. Jones had already been under the scrutiny of Homeland Security with regards to a trip Jones allegedly took to Britain to have sex with an underage female. Google, the owner of YouTube, contacted law enforcement when Jones allegedly uploaded a video which when reviewed revealed itself to be of the sexual abuse of a twelve-year-old. Prosecutors have labelled the content discovered in Jones’ cases to be “extensive and horrific” in nature and including content of children as young as 1-3 years in age.
Jones has sought out letters of support against his incarceration from other comic book pros including Mike W. Barr. The Eisner Award winning author helped rebuild the Green Lantern franchise in the early 1990’s with his work on both Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn miniseries which led to three monthly Green Lantern titles plus a fourth quarterly anthology series. His falling out with editor Kevin Dooley led to a revamp of his “Emerald Twilight” story and his departure from the series.
4/8/18 Update
As reported, Jones changed his plea to guilty as expected and the judge ruled that he would not be held in custody in opposition to the request of the prosecutor. The judge took into account testimony from medical experts that indicated there was little risk of repeat behavior and character references. The defense is planning on filing a motion to restore possession of a file from Jones’ computer, likely the working copy of a book that Jones was writing at the time of his arrest. Sentencing is scheduled for July 10th.