photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Garnel Moore Williams, left, appears Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Douglas County District Court with his attorney, Michael Clarke.

A 31-year-old man was convicted Tuesday of two felonies in connection with an incident last fall in which Lawrence police said several people were held at gunpoint for hours after the defendant claimed money had been stolen from him at an apartment on Michigan Street.

The defendant, Garnel Moore Williams, is now facing more than a decade in prison when he is sentenced on May 28.

Moore Williams was originally charged with aggravated kidnapping, aggravated robbery and aggravated assault in the Nov. 23, 2025, incident, but he entered guilty pleas Tuesday to one count of aggravated battery and one count of aggravated assault.

Prosecutor Eve Kemple, as a factual basis for the plea, told the court that a group of people were socializing at a residence when Moore Williams became angry because he thought money had been stolen from him. He pointed a BB gun at a man, took his phone, then struck him so forcefully in the ear that he required sutures.

As part of his plea agreement with the state, Moore Williams will not seek a departure to probation. The parties agreed that the recommended sentences — 130 months for aggravated battery and 12 months for aggravated assault — should run concurrently, but that will be up to Judge Amy Hanley.

Moore Williams has the worst possible criminal history score, an “A,” under the Kansas Sentencing Guidelines. Kemple told Hanley that at the time of the Lawrence crime Moore Williams was on supervision in Shawnee County after felony convictions there — a fact that would require sentencing in the Douglas County case to run consecutively to the earlier case. In the Shawnee County case, he pleaded guilty in 2018 to robbery, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and criminal discharge of a firearm at an occupied dwelling.

In addition to the Shawnee County crimes, Moore Williams has also been convicted in Douglas County of drug possession in 2017 and burglary in 2014.

At the conclusion of the plea hearing Tuesday, Moore Williams’ attorney, Michael Clarke, asked for a witness in the case, who was present in the courtroom, to be allowed electronic contact with Moore Williams in the Douglas County Jail. Kemple objected to the woman, Tiara Dillon, having contact with Moore Williams because she said Moore Williams had previously used Dillon to contact other witnesses in the case to tell them not to testify against him.

Hanley agreed to allow the contact but ordered Moore Williams and Dillon to not talk about the case, cautioning that unauthorized contact with witnesses was potentially criminal behavior.

In a different Douglas County case, Dillon is facing one count of felony child abuse, as the Journal-World reported.