TEXARKANA — A registered sex offender who received a 15-year prison sentence is set for a jury trial later this month on 40 additional felony charges.
Lonnie Lee Lunsford Jr., 31, of Texarkana entered pleas of true Jan. 11 to allegations that he violated terms of probation assessed in Miller County in 2014 for failure to register as a sex offender and burglary of a habitation.
In a plea of true, an offender accused of violating probation is asked if allegations listed in a motion to revoke probation are true or not true. A defendant facing a criminal charge is initially asked to enter a plea of guilty or innocent.
Lunsford was convicted of coercion in 2003 and required to register as a sex offender as a result, according to the state of Nevada’s Department of Public Safety website.
Lunsford appeared last week before Circuit Judge Kirk Johnson in the Miller County Courthouse. Lunsford accepted 10-year and five-year terms, which Johnson ordered to run consecutively, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney David Cotten said.
The motions to revoke probation were filed in March after Lunsford was arrested on accusations that he injected teen girls with methamphetamine.
Lunsford is accused of giving one girl injections of methamphetamine at his home in the 500 block of Orleans Street in Texarkana, Texas, beginning in June 2014. The girl told investigators she had never used a needle before Lunsford offered to inject her. That victim told investigators that Lunsford injected her repeatedly with the drug.
Cotten said he expects more than one alleged victim to testify at Lunsford’s trial later this month. Lunsford is facing 40 counts of introduction of a controlled substance into the body of another. The offense is punishable by 10 to 40 years or life in prison. But because of Lunsford’s criminal history, Cotten is seeking to treat him as a habitual offender and enhance the punishment range to 10 to 60 years or life.
Jury selection is Jan. 25.