photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center is pictured on Nov. 25, 2025.

A Baldwin City man who angrily confronted a group of Hispanic construction workers while armed was convicted Tuesday of two counts of aggravated assault.

The man, Craig Endecott, 55, pleaded no contest to the two felonies as part of a plea deal with the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office, which dropped three other counts of aggravated assault. Endecott at one time had also been charged with criminal threat in the matter, but that charge had fallen out of the amended complaint he pleaded to.

Prosecutor Adam Carey said that, if presented at trial, the evidence would have shown that on June 22, 2024, deputies responded to a disturbance in the 1800 block of North 150 Road, where a construction crew was framing a house. Endecott showed up with a “weapon” and, “with that weapon,” placed crew members in reasonable apprehension of immediate bodily harm. Carey said Endecott took such action with the intent to convey a criminal threat.

Though the charging document indicates that the weapon was a firearm and the arrest affidavit indicates that the weapon was an AR-10 rifle, which was confiscated by deputies, Carey did not use the word “firearm” or “gun” in his recitation of facts supporting the plea agreement.

According to allegations in the arrest affidavit, Endecott was angry about discarded beverage cans in his yard and rode an ATV to the neighboring construction site, where he displayed the rifle and bullets, causing frightened workers to hide behind a van. One worker hid in the house and filmed part of the encounter with his cellphone.

Endecott demanded to talk to someone who spoke English. An English-speaking man who stepped forward told police that Endecott asked him if he knew what the rifle was, showed him two large bullets and told the man “he had plenty more bullets and could kill them all,” the affidavit said. Endecott, though, told police that he didn’t remember threatening to kill them but said only that he was “good at target practice,” according to the affidavit.

The owner of the home that was being built later shared with deputies a threatening text message and voicemail that he received from Endecott the morning of the incident.

“Yes, your company is building a house across the road from me over in Baldwin City, and if I catch your boys throwing their empty Jumex cans out in my yard again you’re going to have (a) lot less (expletive) employees,” Endecott said in the voicemail, according to the affidavit.

Carey and Endecott’s attorney, Jessica Glendening, are recommending that Judge Amy Hanley sentence Endecott to 24 months in prison — that’s 12 months for each count, to run consecutively — and to suspend that sentence to probation. Endecott would also be required to attend anger management class and have a mental health evaluation. Hanley set sentencing for Jan. 29.