WICHITA — A Wichita man has pleaded no contest to felony theft in the disappearance of Louie the Clown and other items from the former Joyland Amusement Park.
The Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office says 41-year-old Damian Mayes entered the plea on Friday. The items were found in February 2015 at Mayes’ home. Mayes was an employee of the park who helped build and repair organs. The nearly life-sized carved clown played an automated organ near Joyland’s entrance for decades before the park closed in 2006.
The clown statue disappeared from Joyland sometime in 2005 or 2006 and was officially reported stolen in 2010.
Mayes is already serving a sentence in for a 2010 conviction on child sex crimes.
He will be sentenced for the Joyland thefts Dec. 13.
