A Marietta man was arrested last week on charges of attempted murder, felonious assault and child endangerment stemming from a 2019 incident for which he is already serving a 14-year prison sentence after his guilty plea was recently released.

Jonathan Lee Hearn, 52, was arrested Oct. 24 on two counts of attempted murder and two counts of felonious assault, all felonies, and a misdemeanor charge of child endangerment, according to the site Washington County Sheriff’s Office website.

The charges stem from a 2019 case, according to Washington County Prosecutor Nicole Coil.

According to previous reports, Marietta Police responded to Hearn’s residence in Marietta on December 1, 2019, for a disturbance in progress and when they arrived they found Hearn’s girlfriend running and calling for help at her neighbor’s house. Police found the girlfriend’s sister unresponsive with blood coming from her mouth and the girlfriend’s mother with blood on the right side of her face, a cut right eye, a swollen nose and a bleeding mouth. Hearn allegedly punched the mother in the face while she was holding Hearn’s 1-year-old daughter, causing her to throw the child, then punched her several more times, slammed her the bedroom door and threw it to the ground.

He also allegedly punched his girlfriend’s sister in the face, knocked her to the ground, picked her up and threw her face down a flight of stairs where she hit her head, all of which led to- a fractured skull, a brain bleed, a broken rib and two fractured vertebrae.

Hearn was originally charged in 2019 with two first-degree felony counts of attempted murder, two second-degree felony counts of felonious assault and one first-degree felony count of child endangerment.

He pleaded guilty in writing to the two counts of felonious assault and was sentenced to two consecutive seven-year terms. He began serving his sentence at Belmont Correctional Institute in St. Clairsville in February 2020, according to Ohio Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation records.

These records also state that the estimated release date was October 23, 2030.

Hearnhe filed a motion to set aside his conviction or sentence in July 2020, a plea withdrawal in March 2021, and a motion to withdraw and/or set aside his plea in November 2023 in Washington County Common Pleas Court, and all were rejected, according to court records.

He also filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio in July 2022.

In the petition, Hearn said his guilty plea was not knowingly, intelligently or voluntarily entered into, according to District Court records. On August 28, the court granted his request and ordered that his plea be released.

The order granting the writ of habeas corpus and rescinding the plea states that the written plea agreement contained incorrect information and Hearn entered the plea believing he would be eligible for reduced sentence opportunities such as be judicial release and credit for participating in the program, but because of his criminal record he was ineligible and thus received sentences that could not be reduced.

“The deceptive plea agreement was never corrected during the trial and sentencing hearing,” said the order. “In fact, the record indicated that (Hearn) was never informed of the binding, i.e. irreducible, nature of the sentence he was facing.”

The order said Hearn entered into his plea agreement with a fundamental misunderstanding of the relevant circumstance and likely consequences of the agreement, and that a guilty plea must be knowingly and voluntarily entered into.

Coil said Hearn’s plea was vacated on a technicality.

“He successfully argued on appeal that he entered his plea with the understanding that he would be eligible for parole,” Coil said. “Actually the guilty plea in his case said that 0 years of his prison sentence was mandatory. This was a clerical error as there was binding time and was told verbally several times during the plea and sentencing. However, because of this clerical error, Mr. Hearn argued that he entered the plea on the understanding that he would be eligible for judicial release. Therefore, because he was ineligible for parole while the mandatory term was being served, the U.S. District Court granted a writ of habeas corpus and vacated his plea.”

Washington County Common Pleas Judge John Halliday ordered Hearn’s plea vacated last week. A transport order for Hearn from Belmont Correctional Institution to the Washington County Jail for a bond hearing was issued on Oct. 22, and he was then arraigned on Oct. 24 on the original 2019 charges, according to Common Pleas Court records.

Court records show Hearn was arraigned on Oct. 25 and pleaded not guilty.

A $200,000 cash bond and a personal recognizance bond were issued for Hearn, according to court records, including the condition of the bond that he have no contact with the victims and that he not violate any temporary protection orders related to the victims.

Neither court nor jail records show Hearn has posted bond, and the Washington County Jail website shows him still in jail.

Hearn’s trial is scheduled for Dec. 16-20, according to Coil.