Jayson George Santoro made a first appearance in Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday and entered a not guilty plea to a long list of charges racked up during a high-speed chase through a wide swath of Mountain Home in the early morning hours of June 4th.
The chase began when an Arkansas State Police Trooper was running a radar speed check on the U.S. Highway 62/412 bypass when he clocked a west bound vehicle going almost 100 miles-per-hour. The trooper crossed the median and began pursuing the vehicle.
The vehicle left the bypass at the Highway 5 South exit. During the chase, the driver of the vehicle managed to travel through a large area of the city, run 18 stop signs, smash into a Baxter County Sheriff’s Office patrol car and endanger the life of two juvenile females who were passengers in the car.
When the driver eventually turned onto a dead-end street he drove the vehicle into a field and disabled it, fleeing on foot. The driver, identified as Santoro, was located lying under heavy brush about an hour after bailing out of the vehicle.
During a search of the vehicle, officers found a purple colored bag on the driver’s side floorboard containing a set of digital scales, a small amount of marijuana and almost $2,200 in cash.
The 17-year-old Santoro is being charged as an adult in Circuit Court for crimes stemming from the car chase.
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