Ballwin Man Arrested for Road Rage Attack Charged in Another Brutal Assault

The St. Louis County man accused of brutally beating another motorist in a road rage incident near Ballpark Village in October now faces charges in an unrelated assault — one that took place before his alleged rampage downtown.

John Jacob Ehlinger, 35, was arrested last month on a charge of third-degree assault, a felony, court records show. The charges stemmed from an August 2023 incident in which Ehlinger was caught on surveillance video kicking and punching a casino security guard. The guard was beaten so badly he told prosecutors he now has permanent scarring on his face, missed work and has psychological trauma.

It was two months after that incident that Ehlinger was in downtown St. Louis around 8:30 a.m. and another motorist made the mistake of honking at him for running a red light. Ehlinger, who was driving a truck that belonged to a roofing company, reportedly got out of the truck and beat the other motorist so badly that he broke his nose, jaw and forehead. Ehlinger then grabbed a gun and fired shots in the direction of another vehicle, according to the police report.

While Ehlinger had yet to be connected to the August 2023 casino beating, he had two prior convictions for driving while intoxicated and one for slashing someone's tires. (As the Post-Dispatch reported, he'd also been sued for a 2014 brawl outside a Metro East strip club that involved several members of the St. Louis Cardinals.) Yet he was released on bond to await his trial and ordered to use GPS monitoring.

And when St. Louis County arrested him in the casino assault case, they also let him out on bond, deferring to the conditions that had been set in the city case, court records show.

In the last month, Ehlinger's court file in St. Louis city shows three "inclusion zone" violations of his GPS monitor, which suggest that his monitoring device recorded him being somewhere he wasn't supposed to be. Ehlinger would have been able to file explanations of those violations with the court, but those explanations are not public record. Court records show no attempts to revoke his bond or schedule a revocation hearing.

The issue of how to handle potentially dangerous defendants who violate the terms of their pre-trial release has proven complicated for prosecutors and judges. The St. Louis Circuit Court came under fire last year when a man who was supposed to be on GPS monitoring and house arrest while waiting trial, Daniel Riley, crashed his car into a teenager visiting downtown St. Louis for a volleyball tournament. Records showed Riley had violated the terms of his release 51 times without having his bond revoked, and when the teen's legs had to be amputated, the resulting outrage was a major factor in St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner's resignation.

Joel Currier, a spokesman for the St. Louis Circuit Court, said at the time that both prosecutors and defense attorneys are notified for each bond violation that occurs, but judges are not.

"As with every case, it is the responsibility of the attorneys of record to bring relevant matters to the Court’s attention by filing and scheduling for hearing any motions deemed appropriate," he said in a statement released at that time. "It is not appropriate to act as advocate for any side in any case in our system of government."

A spokeswoman for St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabriel Gore, who was appointed by Governor Mike Parson in the wake of Gardner's resignation, said the office did not comment on pending cases.

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