He orchestrated a victim’s assault to break her faith

**Ana Garcia** (0:00)
A word of warning. This podcast explores graphic and disturbing stories and includes some strong language. It therefore may not be suitable for our young listeners or other folks who may find it disturbing. Hello and welcome to True Crime News The Podcast, covering high profile and under the radar cases from across the country every week. I'm your host, Ana Garcia. Our case this week, it was a sadistic plot, not a game or sexual fantasy, the mastermind behind a plot to sexually assault a devout Catholic. In order to break her of her faith was a trusted man, a firefighter.
He enlisted the help of an attacker who said he thought he was taking part in a role of play fantasy. The man had no idea that the woman had not consented. He thought that her fighting back was part of this role playing.
What they put this woman through is frightening and it is evil. We are recording this on Monday, June 22nd of 2026 Our guest today is John Day, a criminal defense attorney and a former sex crimes prosecutor. John is also a commentator that you can catch on multiple media outlets. John is new to the program. Welcome, John.

**John Day** (1:15)
Oh, Ana, thanks for having me.

**Ana Garcia** (1:17)
Oh, this is great. I think this case will be something which you can truly help us through because it's an unusual sexual assault case in the sense that the perpetrator who's been convicted here is not the one who assaulted her, but the one who plotted this insane thing.

**John Day** (1:41)
Yeah, he was the mastermind according to law enforcement. To unpack this, you have to just wrap your head around these disturbing facts, the motivation which was somehow apparently to break this woman's religious faith.
To try to understand the motivation means you've got to delve into the depths of the most evil and darkest places of the human psyche. So it's really not a place I want to go, but you have to at least address the fact that this happened. Here's a person who intended a horrific outcome by using a third person and trying to literally, as he said, break the faith of his victim. Just horrifying.

**Ana Garcia** (2:27)
It really is. That firefighter is going to pay heavily for his monstrous actions. He has been sentenced to life in prison for planning that violent home invasion and sexual assault. This happened in Fort Worth, Texas in a suburb. Joel Jones, who is 54 years old, has been sentenced to life in prison after engineering this insane home invasion and sexual assault on a friend and neighbor of his. The victim in this case has not been named by authorities. Joel Jones used a dating website to enlist the help of a man who fantasized about sexually assaulting women. He said that he thought he was taking part in a consensual fantasy at the woman's house.
We will never really know the truth other than the fact, it seems that the authorities in all of this, John did believe him will get to how he got a much lighter sentence and virtually no prison time.

**John Day** (3:29)
Yeah, you know, the prosecutors had to lock their case down. And if they had to use this guy as a, whether he was unwitting or witting to what was going on, they needed a hook to go after the real perpetrator here. So if he got a break, I can understand that as a prosecutor. I mean, the idea that somehow this guy genuinely believe that this was some kind of a fantasy.
I mean, you have to understand, the victim was literally fighting back, and that was not role playing, that was not acting from what we can tell. But at the end of the day, he gets a sentence that's a break for him. Prosecutors get to use his testimony against the real, the serious villain in this case, the guy who was the mastermind. So I get that. I don't have any problem with doing that. You know, when the expression in prosecution is, when you've got the devil on the, you're trying to devil in court, you're prosecuting the devil.
Sometimes you got to go to hell for the witnesses. And that's sort of what happened here.

**Ana Garcia** (4:27)
So I never heard that. You have to go to hell for the witnesses. I like that. May I borrow that?

**John Day** (4:33)
You may borrow that.

**Ana Garcia** (4:35)
Okay. Wow. That's, that's, that paints a very clear picture for me, especially for this case. Let's get to the background here because what I'm having the most trouble with is obviously motivation. And this whole idea that prosecutors say he was trying to break her of her Catholic faith.