Zachariah Zelk (Photo courtesy of Baxter County Sheriff’s Office)
A Mountain Home man, whose criminal record stretches back to 1999 and who has had 17 felony cases opened on him through the years, appeared in Baxter County Circuit Court Monday.
Forty-four-year-old Zachariah Lee Zelk is now facing new charges of theft of property and violating probation. He pled not guilty to his charges, and his bond was reduced to $2500.
It is being recommended that he be charged as a habitual offender which could extend any sentence he gets.
Zelk was sentenced to six months-probation on drug charges just 34 days before his most recent arrest.
He is now charged with commercial burglary and theft of property. Mountain Home Police were notified on March 11 that Zelk and a female, 35-year-old Chelsea Dianne Ballance, were allegedly working together to steal merchandise from a store and pawn it for cash.
The business provided video footage receipts and other evidence to support the allegations.
In the first instance, Zelk is reported to have come to the store in late January and “ticket switched” a number of items. He is reported to have left the store without even paying the “lower switched price.”
Zelk and Balance were in the store on Feb. 10. Zelk is reported to have rung up three items. One was a fish finder valued at more than $300. All of the items showed up as zippers each priced at $1, indicating price labels had been switched.
Either Zelk or Zelk and Balance returned to the store three more times in February and were alleged to have shoplifted on every visit. According to the probable cause affidavit, evidence shows that the pair took mostly fish finders and binoculars.
The stolen items were taken to local pawn shops and sold. On Feb. 10 and 11, Zelk and Balance were reported to have sold a stolen fish finder and pair of binoculars to the same pawn shop.
On Feb. 16, the spree came to an end. Zelk was seen in the store again taking merchandise. Asset protection officers began following him around. When he approached the garden center, he spotted the asset protection staff members, dropped everything he was carrying and left the store.
Court records show that felony cases were opened on Zelk in 1999, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2019, 2023, 2024 and this year.
Zelk’s charges have included forgery, theft of property, possession of drugs, possession of drug paraphernalia, leaving the scene of an accident, unauthorized use of a vehicle, being a felon in possession of a firearm, residential burglary and breaking or entering. There are multiple counts of the charges scattered through his record that spans 26 years.
He has been accused of stealing his father’s truck and taking and cashing a check found in his father’s wallet.
Zelk has been put on probation and spent time in prison. In his most recently closed drug case, he was put on probation for 5 years.
As Zelk was being sentenced in the 2015 case in which he was charged with stealing and cashing a check belonging to his father, he told the court that his problems with the law all stemmed from his drug use.
He said he had basically “been an addict all my life.”
SEPTEMBER ARREST
In early September last year, Zelk was one of several persons arrested in an apartment along Main Street. Officers were looking for him on an active arrest warrant from Baxter County.
When a search of the apartment was done, three small bags containing a white crystalline substance were found. The substance tested positive for methamphetamine. Zelk was reported to have also had a bag of the substance in his right front pants pocket.
THE TRUCK THEFT
On Oct. 6 last year, Zelk’s father reported he had discovered his truck missing about 11 a.m. the day before. He told investigators he found a note written by his son saying he had taken the truck. Zelk wrote he knew what he had done would anger his father, but he had to do “a thing” and that he would be back in a few hours.
When investigators spoke to the victim on Oct. 6, he said his son had been staying at his residence but had no authority to take possession of the vehicle.
The vehicle was entered into the Arkansas Crime Information Center.
On the afternoon of Oct. 6, the Mountain Home Police Department received a report of an unconscious individual, later identified as Zelk, sitting in a vehicle in a parking lot located along East 9th Street. Zelk was arrested.
The original theft of property charge was lowered to unauthorized use of a vehicle in that case.
According to records at the Baxter County Detention Center, Zelk has been book into the facility 43 times.
Ballance was already facing drug charges in a felony case opened in April last year. Her final hearing in that case was held Monday.
She pled guilty to the charges and was put on probation for four years.
In the case involving Ballance and Zelk, she is apparently being charged with theft by receiving, a misdemeanor.
According to the probable cause affidavit, Zelk is the person alleged to have done the stealing while Ballance abetted him. She is alleged to have used her identification when the items were pawned among other actions.
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