A man who faced charges of trying to run from law enforcement in mid-December 2019 and again in late-November 2020 made an appearance in Baxter County Circuit Court recently.
Fifty-six-year-old John Leroy Lewis pled guilty to the charges in two open criminal cases and was given four years in prison to be served concurrently with the time he is already serving.
Lewis, who is an inmate at the Pine Bluff Unit of the state prison system, is no stranger to jails, prisons, arrests and fleeing from law enforcement. His maze of cases extends back to 1998.
In addition to charges in Arkansas, he has also been in trouble in Missouri.
His latest attempt to flee in Baxter County was on Nov. 27, 2020.
Baxter County sheriff’s deputies spotted Lewis on a motorcycle as they were responding to a suspicious person call in the Jordan area.
When the deputies attempted to stop Lewis, he accelerated. The chase was fairly brief and came to an end when he crashed his motorcycle into a deputy’s patrol car and had to be taken to Baxter Regional Medical Center (BRMC) by ambulance for treatment.
He was booked into the county jail about 5:30 p.m. Nov. 29 after being released from BRMC.
No one else was injured in the incident. In addition to his prison time, Lewis was ordered to pay almost $3,600 in restitution to cover the cost of damage to the deputy’s patrol vehicle.
Lewis was found to have syringes used to inject methamphetamine on his person.
He was booked on charges of fleeing by vehicle and possessing drug paraphernalia.
The second case involving Lewis stemmed from an incident in mid-December 2019.
Lewis also made a run for it at that time – both by vehicle and on foot.
According to the probable cause affidavit, a Mountain Home police officer was sitting stationary at the intersection of East 9th Street and Cardinal Drive when he spotted a vehicle being driven by Lewis with a cracked right taillight.
As the officer attempted to catch the vehicle, it began turning onto different streets. The officer reported it was traveling at a high rate of speed.
A number of stop signs were run until the chase came to a halt in the parking lot of the Ozark Shopping Center.
According to the probable cause affidavit, Lewis exited the vehicle and fled on foot toward the Mountain Home Motel.
The MHPD officer interviewed the female passenger and then searched the vehicle, finding two used syringes and two plastic bags containing a crystalline substance field-testing positive for methamphetamine.
Lewis initially got away, but was eventually arrested.
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