A post-conviction hearing for a Clearfield Township man serving a prison sentence abruptly ended Tuesday after the man's former attorney, Bobette Roper Magnusen, asked for her own representation during testimony.

Tyler B. Kern, 28, is nearing the end of his minimum prison sentence and beginning his probation after he took plea deals in 2019 in three cases. But in a post-conviction motion, he argued that the probation was to run simultaneously with his prison time under the agreement he made with prosecutors.

During Tuesday's hearing on the motion, Magnusen was called to testify about her role in the plea negotiation. Halfway through Magnusen's testimony, she decided that she needed her own attorney in the matter to protect her interests.

She asked Judge William Shaffer, who was presiding over the case, to reschedule the hearing until she could get representation. Shaffer granted the request.

On July 10, 2019, Kern pleaded guilty to charges in three separate cases. For the most serious case, he pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and retail theft for crashing an SUV into a Butler Township police cruiser during a car chase on Dec. 16, 2018, after he was caught stealing a television from Walmart at the Butler Commons shopping plaza. In total, he was sentenced to 16 to 32 months in prison and 36 months of probation running simultaneously with his prison sentence, according to court documents.

In Kern's second case, he was sentenced to 36 months of probation and three to six months in prison. Kerns was immediately paroled, but the court documents do not indicate the probation is running concurrently.

In the third case, Kern pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct with no further penalty. Kern argued on Tuesday that he and his then lawyer Magnusen came to an agreement with assistant district attorney Patricia McLean that the probation would run at the same time as his prison sentence. McLean responded on Tuesday that no such agreement was made.

Since the plea deal, Kern hired Michael Ozdinec, a Cranberry Township lawyer, who filed the post-conviction motion. As part of Tuesday's hearing, they called Magnusen to testify.

But during her testimony, Magnusen spoke out of turn several times, and Shaffer told her that she couldn't freely speak without question prompts from Ozdinec. Magnusen told Shaffer that this case could hurt her bar status and legal practice and asked for her own representation in the matter.

The hearing will be rescheduled once Magnusen is ready with an attorney of her choosing.

Earlier in the hearing, Kern testified that he was under the impression that the probation was being served at the same time as his prison sentence. He testified that he didn't realize the probation was consecutive until he was preparing to be released from prison and getting ready to appear before the state parole board.

“I would've rather done more prison time than state supervised probation,” Kern said. “I got something totally different than what I signed.”