Student accused with 4 others in Kansas school attack pleads no contest

COLUMBUS, Kan. (AP) _ A teenager accused with four others of plotting an armed attack on their high school has been sentenced to probation and community service. <br/><br/>Caleb Byrd, 16, pleaded no contest

Thursday, November 23rd 2006, 3:55 pm

By: News On 6

COLUMBUS, Kan. (AP) _ A teenager accused with four others of plotting an armed attack on their high school has been sentenced to probation and community service.

Caleb Byrd, 16, pleaded no contest Wednesday to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. Judge Robert Fleming put him on probation until the end of the school year and ordered him to serve 100 hours of community service.

``He wants to start moving out of this fiasco, so to speak,'' Byrd's attorney, Eddie Battitori, said after the hearing.

Another of the accused boys, Andrew Jaeger, 15, pleaded no contest to the same charge last week. Fleming sentenced him to probation until the end of the school year, too.

Fleming said he did not sentence Jaeger to do community service because Jaeger's father has a health condition that requires care from his son.

Byrd; Jaeger, Coy New, 18; James Tillman 16; and Robby Hunt, 17, were accused of plotting an attack at Riverton High School on April 20. All five were arrested that day, the anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting in which 15 people were killed in 1999 in Colorado.

Tillman and Hunt have pleaded guilty and were sentenced to a year of probation and community service. New, the only defendant who is legally an adult, is set for trial Monday.