Yellville man finishes plea, gets prison time

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Phillip Bartlett of Yellville was in Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday to finish what he started during a court session April 26th.

The 30-year-old Bartlett entered a guilty plea to multiple counts of theft of property, commercial burglary and criminal mischief. He was sentenced to six years in prison, with two years to serve and four suspended. According to the plea agreement, Bartlett will spend his time in one of the Community Correction Centers in the state.

He was also ordered to pay slightly more than $1,000 in restitution.

During the late April court session, Judge John Putman was taking a plea from Bartlett when Bartlett proclaimed he was innocent of the charges. Judge Putman stopped the plea taking process and told Bartlett if he was not guilty, he needed to take his case to trial.

Bartlett then said despite the fact he was innocent, he wanted to take the plea since he did not feel he would fare well in a trial given his criminal record.

Bartlett’s attorney, Mark Cooper, said he and Bartlett had together viewed a video apparently showing Bartlett was not as innocent as he proclaimed.

But, Judge Putman was not swayed. He said he was “not in the business of sending people to jail who haven’t done anything.”

Judge Putman told Cooper during the April court session Bartlett should reappear at a later date to determine if he would take the plea offer made by the state or proceed to trial. He took the plea Thursday.

On October 8th last year, the owner of a cabin rental business in the Norfork area reported to the sheriff’s office someone had cut the locks off three of the outbuildings on his resort property and stolen items. The owner had a surveillance system, but the suspect had apparently followed the camera wire to a crawl space and took the recorder.

According to court records, the owner said his neighbor had a game camera near the driveway and his neighbor would provide the storage card to investigators. Images captured on that camera included shots of two men — later identified as Bartlett and Dylan Statum of Yellville. A license number on the suspects’ vehicle was also visible.

Statum admitted he was at the scene and was able to identify property taken from the resort — including video equipment from the surveillance system being carried by Bartlett in the images captured by the game camera.

Statum entered a guilty plea in March to the crimes he is said to have committed with Bartlett, as well as his part in the theft of three kayaks last year, and was given 10 years probation.

At the time he was arrested in mid-November last year, Bartlett had been booked into the Baxter County jail 20 times since 2006, according to the Baxter County Sheriff’s Office.

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