Tyrone man sentenced for standoff with police
Wineland to serve 9 to 24 months on five misdemeanors
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HOLLIDAYSBURG -- The Tyrone man convicted of five misdemeanors after an 18-hour standoff with police in July 2021 was sentenced Tuesday to a minimum of nine months' incarceration in the Blair County Prison.
Because John Albert Wineland, 55, has already spent six months in the county prison before bail was posted, he will be credited for that time but must return on Oct. 3 to serve an additional three months.
Judge Jackie Bernard handed down the county prison sentence of nine to 24 months, minus two days, after First Assistant Public Defender Julia Burke asked for a time-served sentence and after Assistant District Attorney Derek Elensky asked for a state sentence exceeding two years.
"I continue to stand by my sentencing suggestion," Elensky said after court concluded. "This was a violent situation."
Bernard also sentenced Wineland to six years' probation and directed him to enter family counseling, undergo cognitive behavioral therapy and to complete a domestic violence batterers program.
In June, a jury convicted Wineland of two counts of terroristic threats, one count of simple assault, one count of flight to avoid apprehension and one count of disorderly conduct, all misdemeanors. The jury acquitted him of 12 additional charges, including felony counts of aggravated and terroristic threats.
In court Tuesday, Wineland told Bernard that he regrets his actions.
"I wish I would have came out in the beginning," Wineland said.
Wineland's charges developed after his family members went to Tyrone police on July 21, 2021, and described how they left their 2054 Riddle Ave. residence, where Wineland was intoxicated, making threats and had access to guns.
In response to the family's report, Tyrone police summoned help from other police units, including state police, which dispatched a Special Emergency Response Team.
After Wineland remained inside his house and defied commands to exit, the SERT team bombarded the house with tear gas grenades, flash-bang devices and rubber bullets.
"We lost everything in that house," Wineland's wife, Jodi, told Bernard in court on Tuesday where she spoke of her love for her husband and asked that he not be ordered to return to prison.
Trial evidence included a text message John Wineland sent to Jodi Wineland while at the police station. It stated: "Come back to this house and I'll blow your f***ing head off."
Bernard also showed little interest in second-guessing actions taken by the police in responding to the family's report or to John Wineland.
"When your behavior sends people to a police department, you don't get to choose the response," the judge told Wineland.
During the June trial where Wineland represented himself, Wineland told the jury that he wasn't going to leave his house because it sounded like a war zone outside.
Shortly after noon on July 22, 2021, Wineland emerged from the house after police broadcast the voice of a friend assuring Wineland that he would be surrendering to state police and not Tyrone police.
Burke tried Tuesday to convince Bernard that additional incarceration time would be of no benefit to Wineland who is now working and trying to overcome the financial and emotional cost of his actions.
"You can't go back in time, but you can mitigate future harm," Burke said.
The family members asked Bernard on Tuesday to hand down a time-served sentence and spoke in favor of Wineland as a valuable part of their family.
Bernard told Wineland that in the months she has handled his cases, he has become less argumentative and less confrontational.
But she also recalled seeing trial video of Wineland taken at the beginning of the family's domestic dispute.
"There's no way that your behavior that day was a one-time thing," Bernard said.
When Bernard sentenced Wineland, she also made him eligible to participate in work release. The supervisor at his factory job described Wineland as a model employee she can assign to any task.
Wineland, however, showed no interest and indicated that he didn't want to burden anyone with transporting him to work. But after Bernard spoke of immediately sending him to prison, Wineland told her that he would work on setting up work release arrangements if she granted him a two-week deferral on his prison reporting date.
"I do want you to be successful," Bernard said. "And I don't want you to be in court again."
Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 814-946-7456.