photo by: Kansas Department Of Corrections

Isaias Esai Rojo in January of 2021.

A Lawrence man resolved multiple criminal cases against him Wednesday in Douglas County District Court by entering a no contest plea to aggravated battery in connection with a brawl at a bar downtown last summer.

The man, Isaias Esai Rojo, 27, was facing multiple felony charges. He was charged with felony criminal damage for reportedly destroying a man’s cellphone in October 2020. The aggravated battery charge is connected with a fight at Logie’s On Mass, 728 Massachusetts St., in August 2022. And he was charged with felony obstruction of law enforcement in January, according to charging documents.

Rojo was scheduled for trial in the criminal damage case next week but entered the plea Wednesday to resolve all three cases.

Assistant District Attorney Ricardo Leal said that the factual basis for Rojo’s plea in the battery case was that on Aug. 17, 2022, at Logie’s, Rojo “engaged in an altercation with a number of individuals, veritably described as a brawl,” and injured a man during the fight. Lawrence police responded to the fight around 1:40 a.m., according to the police incident log.

Leal said that for Rojo’s plea the state would dismiss the criminal damage and obstruction charges and the state would refrain from filing an additional drug charge in connection with the January obstruction incident and would not refile charges in a felony burglary case that was dismissed without prejudice last September.

The burglary case was one of two cases against Rojo that were recently dismissed, as the Journal-World reported. He was charged with burglary of a firearm in connection with an incident on April 2, 2022, in the 800 block of East 12th Street. Those charges were dismissed after the alleged victim failed to appear at a hearing.

Rojo was also charged with two counts of rape for an incident on June 18, 2020. The state alleged that he raped two women who were ages 18 and 19 when they were not in a mental state to consent. In January, those charges were dismissed due to insufficient evidence and without prejudice, meaning they could be refiled at a later date.

Judge Sally Pokorny accepted Rojo’s plea and scheduled him to be sentenced on May 5. Rojo is currently out of custody on a $16,000 cash or surety bond.

Rojo has additional felony convictions in Douglas County for burglary in 2018 and drug possession in 2016, according to Kansas Department of Corrections records.