photo by: Kansas inmate registry

Casey L. Williams Jr. in 2020.

A man arrested after a year on the run from police was deemed incompetent Wednesday in Douglas County District Court to stand trial in an armed robbery case and in another case alleging battery on a law enforcement officer.

The man, Casey Lamont Williams, 25, of Scranton, Kansas, appeared in court via Zoom from his cell at the Douglas County Jail. He was scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday for one felony count of burglary and two felony counts of criminal threat for an incident on Nov. 28, 2020, at an apartment in the 1300 block of Crosswinds Court in Lawrence.

Williams pleaded guilty to the charges in October of 2021 as part of a plea deal to resolve that case and eight others, but not the armed robbery and battery cases. He was charged with various crimes between 2019 and 2021, including multiple felonies: aggravated assault, possession of a firearm, obstruction of law enforcement and burglary. He was also facing multiple misdemeanor domestic battery charges, according to the plea agreement.

Williams entered the guilty plea on Oct. 1 and was scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 1, 2021. But before he appeared for sentencing, he was arrested for an alleged armed robbery on Oct. 14, 2021, as the Journal World reported. Co-defendants in that case, Victor G. Moreno, 20, and Wesley James Tolbert, 26, both of Lawrence, have been sentenced in the case. Moreno was sentenced to 32 months in prison, and Tolbert, who has several felonies on his record, was sentenced to 12 years.

Prior to the Oct. 14 arrest, Williams had bonded out of jail on small surety bond amounts ranging from $500 to $8,000. He was given a $100,000 bond for the October 2021 burglary case. He posted bond a few days after his arrest and skipped bond, missing his Nov. 1 sentencing date for the other nine cases.

A year later, on Nov. 2, 2022, Williams was located and taken into custody by the Osage County Sheriff’s Office, said George Diepenbrock, spokesperson with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office. A few days after his arrest, he allegedly attacked a Douglas County corrections officer at the jail and was charged with felony battery on a law enforcement officer.

Williams’ defense attorney, Branden Smith, filed for a competency evaluation after Williams refused to appear in court on Jan. 11. Williams appeared for that hearing again from his jail cell but refused to even get out of his bed. Judge Sally Pokorny said on Wednesday that she accepted the results of the evaluation and would put Williams on the waiting list to go to Larned State Hospital to “have his mental competency restored” when a bed becomes available. Williams is next scheduled to appear in court on April 26 for a status update.

Williams is waiting to be arraigned in the battery case and is waiting for a preliminary hearing on the robbery charge. He is being held on a $260,000 bond, according to the jail booking log.