Brandon Cooper of Mountain Home entered a guilty plea to a number of criminal cases during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday and was given six years in prison.The 34-year-old Cooper and co-defendant Tommy Hitt were charged either separately or together with a number of crimes committed in late December last year and the first couple of months this year.The crimes include possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia, as well as unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and driving on a suspended license. Cooper was arrested on these charges separately.
His charges also involved the alleged theft of a skid steer track loader valued at $35,000, taken from a job site along State Highway 201 North. The owner had posted information about the stolen equipment on social media leading a citizen to report a skid steer track loader was sitting on a trailer along Highway 87 north of Gepp. The citizen’s attention was drawn to the equipment because the trailer and the vehicle pulling it were both undersized to transport the 11,000-pound piece of equipment.
Cooper’s was also charged with breaking into a garage at a Mountain Home residence twice and taking an air compressor and a Weed Eater on January 10th. Cooper and Hitt were confronted by the homeowner on both occasions. The homeowner was reported to have chased the two men, but they got away. On the second attempt, the homeowner confronted the men with a baseball bat, hitting one of the two and the van they were traveling in. Cooper and Hitt were arrested when the van was located behind a residence along 10th Street. Both men were found in the house at that address.
Cooper was also charged with stealing tools from a detached garage at a residence in Mountain Home in late December last year. The victim identified tools taken from his garage found at a home in which Cooper lived.
In early March, Cooper was charged in connection with an incident in the Baxter County jail. He was reported to have reached through a portal in a cell door through which meals are given to inmates. When jail staff searched the cell, they found a cigarette and a glove full of tobacco.
Hitt pled guilty to the charges against him and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in mid-March. He is seving his time in the Grimes Unit of the state prison system at Newport.
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