A Warren County man accused of breaking into his ex-girlfriend’s home and beating her unconscious rejected a plea offer at the last minute this week and will stand trial in late March.

Clarence Jones, 25, was set to plead guilty in an aggravated domestic assault case Thursday but after meeting with his attorney for more than half an hour in the courtroom, he changed his mind.

“Mr. Jones has decided to reject the plea offer and go to trial,” defense attorney Clayton Lockhart said.

Circuit Judge M. James Chaney set trial for March 30.

“It’s a special date. We want to go ahead and get this over for him,” Chaney said from the bench.

Conditions of the plea deal were not released.

Jones, who is serving a 16-year sentence on a previous aggravated domestic assault, appeared in court shackled and handcuffed wearing a yellow Mississippi Department of Corrections jumpsuit.

Jones is accused of breaking into the home of his former girlfriend, Jordan Melton, in April 2012 and beating her unconscious.

Jones made no statement in court, but his parents — Deborah and Jessie Jones — said after the hearing that they believe their son entered the home and found Melton being assaulted by another man.

“I know he’s not guilty,” Jessie Jones said.

In September 2013, Clarence Jones pleaded guilty to stabbing Melton with a pocketknife while she was working as a waitress at Ameristar Casino. The stabbing left Melton with a collapsed lung and cuts over most of her body.

Jones shares a name with but is not related to a pardoned killer who the state supreme court recently ruled was not eligible for his criminal record to be erased.

That Clarence Jones stabbed 22-year-old Carla M. Smith to death at Embassy Apartments on Grove Street in the early hours New Year’s Day 1992.