March trial scheduled for former sheriff

Michael R. Dixon, left, stands with his attorney Grant Boyd at Dixon's arraignment on Monday, May 2, 2016, at the Boone County Courthouse in Columbia, Mo.
Michael R. Dixon, left, stands with his attorney Grant Boyd at Dixon's arraignment on Monday, May 2, 2016, at the Boone County Courthouse in Columbia, Mo.

An eight-hour bench trial is scheduled for March 1 in Boone County to hear a misdemeanor case against former Osage County Sheriff Michael Dixon.

Dixon was charged last April with a class D felony for unlawful use of a weapon while he was intoxicated - a crime that carries a possible prison sentence of up to four years.

However, prosecutors reduced that charge to a misdemeanor, continuing the complaint that on March 5 in Hartsburg Dixon "knowingly had on his person a firearm and handled such firearm in a negligent manner in that defendant pointed the firearm at another person during a time when the defendant was intoxicated."

During a court appearance Tuesday in Columbia, a substitute charge was filed showing while Dixon remains charged with being drunk and unlawfully using a weapon, the weapon was not loaded at the time.

Dixon did not object to the substitute charge, pleaded not guilty and requested a continuance. This will allow for witnesses to be subpeonaed for the bench trial.

Dixon was Osage County's sheriff when the incident at Hartsburg's Hitchin' Post reportedly occurred.

He resigned his job at the end of May and admitted July 15 to St. Louis County Circuit Judge Ellen Ribaudo his being in the Hartsburg bar last March violated his probation in a 2013 case, where he had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor harassment charge in 2014.

Ribaudo fined him $1,000 for the probation violation and closed the books on the older case.

This summer, Dixon surrendered his state peace officer's license and cannot get it back.