A Hope man has pleaded guilty to lesser-included charges resulting from a New Year’s Day carjacking incident in the Columbus Regional Hospital parking lot.
Kenneth Wentworth Jr., 27, of Hope, is scheduled to be sentenced at 2:30 p.m. Jan. 8 — more than a year after the incident — in Bartholomew Superior Court 1 after pleading guilty to the lesser included offenses of Level 3 felony attempted robbery resulting in bodily injury and to misdemeanor battery resulting in bodily injury.
Wentworth was arrested on charges of robbery, leaving the scene of a crash involving injury, auto theft and battery after a carjacking incident in the Columbus Regional Hospital parking lot, court documents state.
In exchange for the guilty plea, prosecutors have agreed to dismiss the remaining charges pending against Wentworth, according to the plea bargain. The plea bargain also calls for Wentworth to be responsible for restitution under all counts charged, including those that are being dismissed.
Columbus police officers were sent to the hospital parking lot at 2400 17th St. on Jan. 1 about a vehicle crash. When they arrived, they found that Wentworth had fled on foot after crashing the vehicle, according to investigators.
When officers arrived, Wentworth and a family member of the carjacking victim were in a physical struggle on 17th Street just off the hospital grounds, police said.
Police determined that Wentworth entered the unoccupied driver’s seat of a 2016 Chrysler Town and Country minivan and attempted to drive away, police said.
The vehicle’s owner, Lorrie A. Crouch, 56, of Hope, partially entered the passenger side of her vehicle and struggled with Wentworth, police said.
Wentworth is accused of putting the vehicle in reverse with the passenger door striking Crouch’s 88-year-old mother, Sara Smith, who was seated near the vehicle in a wheelchair, police said.
Wentworth then is accused of accelerating the vehicle forward and striking a parked car, causing Crouch to fall out of the minivan and strike her head on the concrete parking lot, police said. Both women were hospitalized for their injuries following the incident.
Wentworth has been held in the Bartholomew County Jail since his arrest, jail records show. His bond was reduced to $500,000 in February, court records state.
For more on this story, see Wednesday’s Republic.
