Montgomery County Man Pleads To Aggravated Assault After Standoff With Police: Reports

PLYMOUTH TOWNSHIP, PA — A local man who engaged Plymouth Township Police in a standoff at his home back in early 2021 after they went to the residence in search of his brother has pleaded guilty to counts of aggravated assault in connection with the ordeal, according to media reports.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported this week that Willie Singletary, 30, of Plymouth Township, entered the guilty plea on two aggravated assault counts during a proceeding before Montgomery County Common Pleas Court Judge Thomas Del Ricci.

The criminal docket sheet in the case did not yet appear to be updated to reflect the guilty pleas, but the Inquirer reported that the negotiated plea with county prosecutors comes with a two-to-five-year state prison sentence.

Court records show that Singletary had originally been charged with a total of four felony aggravated assault counts along with four separate misdemeanor counts.

Investigators with the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office and Plymouth Township Police jointly announced Singletary's arrest back in mid-January 2021.

According to prosecutors, Montgomery County SWAT members, armed with a search warrant, went to a home on the 1900 block of Johnson Road in Plymouth Meeting back on Jan. 13, 2021, looking for Singletary's younger brother, also named Willie Singletary, relating to a series of armed robberies and thefts from gas stations and convenience stores in Montgomery and Chester Counties.

When officers arrived at the younger brother's home, the younger Singletary, aged 20, peacefully surrendered to police, however, the older Singletary refused to exit the home or comply with law enforcement requests and he subsequently led police on an hours-long standoff, according to the DA's Office.

Officers subsequently discovered that the older Singletary was wanted in Philadelphia for a murder, and it was believed that he refused to exit the home because he had mistakenly believed that officers were there to pick him up for the murder warrant, and not there for the younger brother.

The DA's Office previously stated that the older Singletary had threatened the lives of police officers at the scene and that he also threatened to set the house on fire.

It took police nearly five hours of negotiation, but the older Singletary brother was eventually taken into custody without incident.

The Inquirer reported that the older Singletary, in addition to threatening the lives of police, even poured a cleaning solution into the eyes of two of the officers when they first came to the home looking for the younger brother.

The paper reported that the older Singletary also pleaded guilty Monday to a separate burglary charge stemming from a burglary he committed in an empty Lower Merion Township home in December 2019, although the two-to-four-year prison sentence he got for that admission will run concurrently with the aggravated assault sentence.

The two Singletary brothers have an older brother, also named Willie Singletary, who made news some years back when the elder Singletary was a judge on the now-defunct Philadelphia Traffic Court.

The oldest Singletary ended up serving time in federal prison for lying to the FBI in connection with an investigation into ticket-fixing at the lower tier court.

The case ultimately culminated with Philadelphia Traffic Court being abolished back in 2013, and the duties of traffic court judges being transferred over to Philadelphia Municipal Court.

The elder Singletary had at one point after his release from prison following the scandal attempted to run for a Philadelphia City Council seat, but he was barred because of his felony conviction.

The Inquirer story this week about the younger Singletary brothers said that the 2021 standoff in Plymouth Township ended after the elder Singletary helped to diffuse the situation between his middle brother and police.