photo by: Kim Callahan/journal-World

Markcus Trey Sanders appears Thursday, June 25, 2026, with attorney Jessica Glendening in Douglas County District Court.

A man who was accused of robbing a Lawrence woman at her home at gunpoint four years ago pleaded guilty Thursday to a lesser offense and will potentially face several years in prison when he is sentenced later this summer.

The defendant, Markcus Trey Sanders, 32, pleaded guilty in Douglas County District Court to attempted aggravated residential burglary. He had originally been charged with aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon and aggravated burglary for his role in a June 30, 2022, home invasion in Lawrence.

In that case, Sanders and a relative, Chester Brockman, reportedly stole cash and marijuana from a home in the 3000 block of Bainbridge Circle. At Sanders’ preliminary hearing last year, a Lawrence police officer testified about finding around 2 pounds of marijuana and nearly $2,900 in cash in Sanders’ car, which authorities had stopped with a tactical maneuver, after the reported robbery.

photo by: Kansas Department of Corrections

Chester Wendell Brockman, left, Markcus Trey Sanders, right

Brockman, the 54-year-old codefendant, was convicted first and is serving a 17-year sentence for the crime. Brockman has an extensive criminal history, having racked up 37 criminal convictions in the past 30 years, as the Journal-World reported.

Also Thursday, in a separate incident from 2020, Sanders pleaded guilty to criminal possession of a firearm by a felon. In that case, he was pulled over for a traffic violation in May 2020 on the Kansas Turnpike, where police discovered a handgun in his car. It was illegal for him to have the gun after being convicted in 2012 of aggravated burglary and intimidation of a witness.

Sanders told Judge Stacey Donovan that he was “very satisfied” with the plea deal his attorney, Jessica Glendening, had crafted with the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office.

Glendening said she would be filing a motion ahead of Sanders’ Aug. 27 sentencing. She did not specify the nature of the motion, but it appeared from context that she meant a motion to depart from the Kansas Sentencing Guidelines.