Photo: Hunter “Ty” Peifer
A man placed on probation for 10 years after pleading guilty in 2018 to having drugs and drug paraphernalia around a small infant is in trouble again.
Two new cases have been opened against 21-year-old Hunter “Ty” Peifer. He entered a not guilty plea to his newest charges during an appearance in Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday.
Peifer who formerly lived in Mountain Home now shows an address in the small Jackson County town of Tuckerman.
In the newest case against Peifer, he is accused of possessing methamphetamine and endangering the welfare of minors.
The charges stem from a traffic stop in early February. Peifer was a passenger in the vehicle where methamphetamine was allegedly found.
There were also two small children – ages 2 and 3 – in the vehicle, leading to the endangering charges.
In another open case, Peifer is accused of participating with others in robbing a man in a room of the Executive Inn in mid-September last year.
Mountain Home Police officers responded to the motel and the victim of the robbery said three men he met earlier that night came to his room and demanded money.
At one point, the three men were reported to have “loaded” the victim into a black pickup truck and drove around town threatening to shoot him.
The group returned to the Executive Inn, and the victim gave the men more money.
The robbers then left.
Police said the victim knew one of the men and identified him as 20-year-old Austin Helms.
Photo: Austin Helms
Helms was arrested in Boone County on unrelated charges in October last year, and a Mountain Home police officer went to Harrison and interviewed him. According to the probable cause affidavit, Helms admitted he had gone to the Mountain Home motel with two other males to rob the victim.
Helms said he was not armed during the incident but did take part in stealing the victim’s money and was along as the men drove the man around in the truck.
Helms said he also took the victim’s cellphone and was using it as his own at the time he was arrested.
According to the police report, Helms identified his companions as Peifer and a person he knew only as “Braden.”
Helms said Peifer was the one who brandished a Glock 9 millimeter handgun during the incident.
In his initial case, filed in 2018 when he was 18-years-old, Peifer was arrested after Mountain Home police were called to a multi-family housing complex along North Church Street to assist personnel from the Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS).
The DHS staff members were checking on the welfare of an infant living in one of the apartments.
According to the probable cause affidavit, when police arrived, Peifer turned over a lockbox containing about nine grams of methamphetamine, digital scales and several unused small plastic bags commonly used to package methamphetamine for sale or use.
DHS personnel had called police after seeing glass smoking pipes in plain view in the residence.
Peifer admitted to police he had smoked methamphetamine the night before.
His charges in that case included possession of methamphetamine, drug paraphernalia, exposure of a child to chemical substances or methamphetamine and endangering the welfare of a minor.
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