Jefferson City man pleads guilty to marijuana possession

A Jefferson City man pleaded guilty Wednesday to an amended charged in a drug case from January 2017.

During a hearing before Cole County Presiding Judge Pat Joyce, Maurice Jackson, 28, pleaded guilty to one count of possession of marijuana. He had been charged with one count of delivery of a controlled substance, but prosecutors amended that charge.

Joyce ordered Jackson serve a 120-day shock detention sentence in the Cole County Jail, with credit for time served.

Officers had stopped Jackson at the intersection of Jefferson and East Franklin streets to serve a federal arrest warrant for a weapons offense, according to a Jefferson City Police Department probable cause statement.

Jackson was arrested, and when he was searched officers found a large plastic bag containing several smaller, individually wrapped bags of a green, leafy substance determined to be marijuana. Jackson also had $444 in cash and two cellphones in his pocket.

Jackson had at least one prior conviction for unlawful use of a weapon in another state at the time of his arrest.