A former teacher slit his own throat in a California courtroom, moments after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl. Jeffrey Scott Jones, 56, cut himself with a standard razor blade as the jury’s verdict was read at a court in Huntington Beach on Wednesday morning.
The defendant’s head reportedly slumped to the table as blood started to pour from his neck. Sheriff’s deputies quickly administered first aid, but a screaming Jones refused to cooperate and was handcuffed. He was finally transported to a nearby hospital by paramedics, with non-life threatening injuries.
His lawyer, Ed Welbourn, said he was sitting next to his client when the incident occurred but did not see it happen. “My attention was on the jury,” Mr Welbourn told the Orange County Register, “but from what people tell me he had a blade somewhere in his clothing and he pulled it out when the verdicts were read.”
Authorities are reportedly investigating how Jones was able to bring the razor through the security checkpoint at the entrance to the court building.
Jones was a teacher for 27 years and most recently taught English at Libra Academy in Huntington Park near Los Angeles. He sexually assaulted his victim multiple times between September 2012 and April 2013. Twice in May 2013, “Jones raped the victim, stating that he would ruin her life if she told anyone what he was doing,” prosecutors said in a statement.
The teenager, who has not been publicly named, was not one of Jones’s pupils.
The 56-year-old was found guilty of two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one count of continuous sexual abuse. He is set to be sentenced in November and could face life in prison.
