Convict pleads innocent to charge

Jonesboro gunman faces firearms count

FAYETTEVILLE - A man convicted as a teenager in the 1998 schoolyard shooting near Jonesboro pleaded innocent Wednesday to a federal gun charge that stems from a New Year's Day traffic stop in Fayetteville.

Mitchell S. Johnson, 23, was indicted in U.S. District Court in Fayetteville on one count of being in possession of a firearm while being a user of or addicted to a controlled substance. If convicted, he faces up to a $250,000 fine and 10 years in prison - a harsher sentence than the seven years he served for the shooting deaths of a teacher and four students.

Johnson was charged with misdemeanor possession of marijuana and of carrying a firearm after the Jan. 1 traffic stop in which he was a passenger in a van driven by another convicted teenage killer, Justin Trammell.

A sheriff's deputy said Johnson had a bag of marijuana in his pocket and a loaded semiautomatic pistol in the van at the time of the traffic stop.

Trammell, who was 15 in 1999 when he shot and killed his father with a crossbow in Bentonville, was cited for careless driving. The two said they were headed to California when the deputy said he saw the van weaving.

State prosecutors dropped the misdemeanor charges against Johnson when the U.S. attorney's office said it would pursue a case.

A jury trial has been set for Dec. 3 before U.S. District Judge Jimm L. Hendren in Fayetteville.

"In my experience, it's a very unusual charge," said Assistant Federal Public Defender Jack Schisler, who is representing Johnson. He declined to comment further on the case.

Johnson was released Wednesday on $5,000 bond. A federal magistrate ordered Johnson to have no contact with Trammell as a condition of his release.

The two were roommates while serving time in the Arkansas Youth Services Division in 2000 and 2001. They also lived together in Fayetteville with Trammell's girlfriend before the traffic stop.

The girlfriend, Chelsea Jabusch, told authorities that she found a "huge" brick of marijuana and a loaded gun in Johnson's room one day.

When she confronted Trammell, the father of her young son, about her finding, he threatened to put a gun in her mouth and shoot her while she was sleeping, according to police reports. In July, a jury acquitted Trammell of terroristic threatening.

Johnson was 13 when he and Andrew Golden, then 11, pulled the fire alarm at Westside Middle School on March 24, 1998. Golden then hid with Johnson in some woods and started shooting at classmates and teachers exiting the building.

Johnson was released from a detention center in Memphis in 2005 when he turned 21. Since he was charged as a juvenile and had served his time, he was released with a clean record and was allowed to own firearms.

Arkansas, Pages 16 on 10/25/2007

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