A Penn Township man found guilty by a jury of recklessly endangering 50 to 75 people during a church picnic in July 2016 was sentenced Thursday to house arrest and years of probation.

Shawn E. McDonell, 38, was sentenced to six years probation by county Judge William Shaffer.

He was also ordered to pay court costs and a $50 fine, as well as to undergo intensive mental health treatment with individual therapy and psychiatric medication and to remain on house arrest with electronic monitoring pending further order of the court.

McDonell had previously been convicted of four misdemeanor counts, including defiant trespass, disorderly conduct and two counts of recklessly endangering another person, as well as summary harassment, following a one-day trial in October.

He was initially charged with 50 counts of reckless endangerment which were consolidated into the two counts, as well as the other charges, after an incident at the New Life Christian Ministries Church in Saxonburg July 1, 2016.

State police said McDonell was angry from being told he was not permitted on church property. After dropping off his wife at the church function and again being told to leave, McDonell almost hit James Reedy, who was working as parking lot security for the church, and drove down a hill and into a field where between 50 and 75 parishioners were celebrating the church's 15th anniversary.

The truck stopped about 10 yards from the tent “due to it getting stuck” in the field, documents said. The church's security manager rushed in and restrained McDonell until a trooper arrived.

On the stand, McDonell claimed the situation was an accident. He said the accelerator in his 1993 Ford F-150 pickup truck became stuck and he took the only course of action he could to keep from injuring anyone and drove onto the field.

Following a psychiatric evaluation on Dec. 13, Assistant District Attorney Mark Lope said he had “real concerns” about McDonell's mental health and his “explosive nature” and “fascination with firearms.”

He pointed out that McDonell had been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility and is legally forbidden from owning firearms.

Lope asked for close supervision because of the “recurring psychological issues.”

“The psychiatric evaluation states that Mr. McDonell is at 'significant risk of further dangerous behavior,'” Lope said.

McDonell's attorney, Public Defender Joseph Smith, said McDonell was in a “bad place with medication” at the time of the incident.

“It was the care that he was receiving at that point that caused him to not be mentally stable,” he said.

McDonell testified Thursday that he was misdiagnosed years ago with “intermittent explosive anger disorder” but was really suffering from untreated post-traumatic stress disorder after watching a woman burn alive in a car accident. He said he is attending weekly appointments at Family Psychological Associates, but is not medicated.

“I function fine not medicated,” he said.

He said it wasn't until two weeks after being arrested that he understood what was going on, because of the “overzealous and reckless” medications he had previously been on, which caused waking nightmares and hallucinations.

“I had felt the world had ended and I was stuck here. That was the nightmare I was stuck in,” he said. “I was stuck in a living nightmare for so long on those medications I was taking.”

He said at the time of the incident he felt his wife was in danger, after hallucinating that she had called him to come pick her back up.

“But I didn't even have my phone,” he said. “She had it.”

While awaiting trial, McDonell was on house arrest, and testified that he had no violations of that supervision.

Lope said McDonell was “making it sound like all his problems are related to medication” but has “continuing lack of insight into what he did.”

McDonell was previously acquitted of five counts of felony possession of a prohibited firearm by Shaffer before the cases went to the jury April 19.

Penn Township Police charged McDonell in two cases with illegally possessing two AK-47-style rifles and several handguns on July 4 and July 20, 2016.

He was also charged in another case with allegedly assaulting his wife on July 1, 2016.

All those cases have been withdrawn by the prosecution.