New trial date set for second Bartlesville police officer charged with assault, battery

BARTLESVILLE, Okla. - A new trial date has been set for 42-year-old Stacy Neafus, one of two Bartlesville officers charged with assault and battery for an incident at a hospital more than a year ago.

Neafus, formerly set for trial Thursday morning, has been ordered to return to court on Jan. 31, the new trial date set after he did not appear in court Thursday.

He was placed on leave in September of 2011 along with Sonya Worthington, 45, after an investigation by Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation into an Sept. 18, 2011 incident at Jane Phillips Medical Center showed the two former officers to have “willfully and unlawfully committed assault and battery” on a patient, according to a court document.

Neafus reportedly pushed the alleged victim's upper torso over a metal chair arm with “with the weight of the defendant pressing” the man “who was handcuffed behind his back at the time of the defendant's actions, with force and violence.

Worthington allegedly struck the same alleged victim and placed him in a headlock, pulled and twisted his head while he was handcuffed, “with force and violence,” said the information sheet.

A jury in October finding Worthington guilty of using excessive force on the patient, the court  directed her to pay a $1,000 fine but required no jail time.