Counselor gets jail time

Melissa Lynn Jones, who was found guilty last month of making terrorist threats while using a firearm, will spend 90 days in the Tehama County Jail and the next three years on probation.

Jones (pictured), a Chicoan in her early 40s, was featured in a CN&R cover story in October 2009 after a Redding reporter, Barry Clausen, alleged she’d pulled a gun on him while he was trying to interview her about sexual misconduct at the Tehama County Juvenile Hall, where she sometimes worked as a counselor.

During a one-day trial April 1, the prosecution proved that on March 31, 2009, Jones—then an employee at the Tehama County Department of Mental Health—did indeed point a handgun at Clausen in a church parking lot in Red Bluff and threaten to kill him. A Tehama County investigation into the juvenile hall was dropped earlier this year due to lack of evidence.