[updated*] TRIAL SET FOR SV SHOOTER WITH VIOLENT CRIMINAL HISTORY
charged with firing guns at residences, including his own
arrested while walking on Fry Blvd, carrying rifles and chewing on balloon containing meth
* UPDATE FEB 5, 2017 - Stephen Yeo, the Sierra Vista man arrested in December while walking along Fry Blvd. carrying two rifles, will undergo a mental competency evaluation next month. Judge Wallace Hoggatt approved the examination during a hearing February 3. Yeo's court-appointed attorney Matt Cannon requested the evaluation and noted prosecutor Thomas Bennett did not object. The judge also approved payment for the evaluation and signed an order to ensure the sheriff’s office transports Yeo to the March 21 appointment.
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SIERRA VISTA - With a string of arrests for violent crimes dating back to 1994, Stephen Alfred Yeo II is scheduled for trial in April for allegedly firing a rifle at two Sierra Vista residences, including his own. Yeo was arrested at 7:25am December 7 after officer Earl Franklin of the Sierra Vista Police Department saw him walking along Fry Boulevard near Fifth Avenue carrying two rifles. Yeo is prohibited from possessing firearms due to prior felony convictions.
Police accounts of Yeo’s arrest indicate there was a report earlier in the morning of shots fired in the 400 block of South Garden Avenue at the Garden Canyon Mobile Home Park. When Franklin stopped Yeo it was determined Yeo lived on that block. Corporal Armin Lewis and officer Jene Stewart went to Yeo’s residence where they “discovered several bullet holes in Stephen’s trailer.” It was also determined that one of the bullets went “into a neighbor’s trailer wall.”
Several minutes after police made contact with Yeo he was taken to the police station to be booked. At that time it was revealed Yeo “had a small yellow object in his mouth” which turned out to be a balloon. According to officer Franklin’s probable cause statement, the balloon “contained a bluish substance, which was later tested and was positive for methamphetamine.” Yeo was taken to the emergency room as a precaution and then cleared to be transported to the county jail.
A county grand jury later indicted Yeo, age 45, on several counts, including discharging a firearm at a residence, reckless endangerment, and possession of methamphetamine. Deputy county attorney Thomas Bennett is prosecuting the case for the Cochise County Attorney’s Office and deputy public defender Kevin Oursland has been appointed as Yeo’s defense counsel. Judge Wallace Hoggatt will hear the case, which is scheduled for a pre-trial conference on March 24 in preparation for trial starting April 25.
Court records show Yeo has an extensive criminal history involving acts of violence.
In September 2015 he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for engaging in “fighting, violent or seriously disruptive behavior” during an August 2015 incident at the Circle K near the Cloud 9 Mobile Home Park. A plea agreement approved by judge pro tempore Leslie Sansone of the Sierra Vista Justice Court resulted in Yeo being assessed a $667 fine but no jail time.
In May 2013 Yeo was released from the Arizona Dept. of Corrections after serving a 26 month sentence for a March 2011 aggravated assault incident in Pima County. At the time of his arrest in that case, Yeo had been out of prison less than a year after completing a twelve year sentence for attempted second degree murder.
Court records show Yeo received the twelve year sentence when he and a teenage companion robbed a Tucson gas station in August 1998. Video showed that the robbers got the money out of the cash register without any resistance from the store clerk but Yeo still fired a .30 caliber rifle at the clerk, who barely avoided injury. Prior to that arrest Yeo served two 1995 prison terms for endangerment.
During his time with the Arizona Dept. of Corrections Yeo had 13 sustained disciplinary violations of prison rules. As a result, corrections officials revoked his opportunity for early release on the 1998 case, requiring Yeo to serve the full twelve years of his sentence. He was released in August 2010.
Yeo had another arrest in 1998 - involving an assault- according to Sierra Vista Justice Court records. However the state-run public access system does not show an entry by the court of the specific charges or the disposition of the case. State corrections officials have verified that Yeo has not served time in state prison for any conviction in Cochise County.
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Contact reporter Terri Jo Neff at 520-508-3660 and cjw_media@yahoo.com
