Photo: Dylan Ozzy Lawyer
A Gassville man, facing charges stemming from a two-county, high-speed pursuit in early July last year, was sentenced to 30 years in prison during a session of Fulton County Circuit Court Thursday.
Twenty-six-year-old Dylan Ozzy Lawyer faced criminal cases in Baxter and Fulton counties stemming from the chase and its aftermath.
Combining the new charges from both Baxter and Fulton counties, Lawyer was accused of breaking or entering, kidnapping, false imprisonment, fleeing, aggravated residential burglary, aggravated assault, terroristic threatening, and theft of property and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
The kidnapping and false imprisonment charges stem from Lawyer breaking into a home of an elderly couple in Fulton County and forcing them to help him try and escape from the area.
On Jan. 16, prosecutors in Fulton County amended some of the original charges against Lawyer.
The amendments included reducing aggravated residential burglary to the lesser charge of residential burglary. The amendment brought the charge down from a Class Y felony, the most serious class of crime in Arkansas not punishable by death, to a Class B felony.
The two counts of kidnapping and false imprisonment were reduced to second-degree false imprisonment, making those charges misdemeanors instead of felonies.
A charge of theft of property originally a Class D felony was reduced to a Class A misdemeanor.
Lawyer’s bond in Fulton County, where the more serious charges were filed, was initially set at $500,000 cash only. The bond was lowered to $120,000 in mid-December. In Baxter County, the bond is set at $100,000. Both bonds were allowed to be posted in cash or by a bail bond company.
Conditions were set on the bonds in both counties to include wearing an ankle monitor, weekly drug testing, requiring Lawyer to live with a relative in Gassville and to remain employed.
Lawyer was returned to the Baxter County jail early this month after his bond was revoked. He allegedly failed drug tests in violation of the conditions of his release.
Mountain Home attorney Ben Burnett represents Lawyer in both counties.
According to probable cause affidavits filed in the chase cases, the events resulting in Lawyer’s charges began about 6:20 a.m., July 9 last year, with a phone call to the Baxter County Sheriff’s Office reporting an attempted home invasion.
According to investigators, a person, later identified as Lawyer, first broke into a vehicle parked at a house located along Baxter County Road 390 and damaged the dash in an attempt to get it started.
Lawyer then attempted to break into the house by smashing glass in a door at the back of the residence with a rock. One resident screamed, turned on the lights, and Lawyer fled.
The next phase of Lawyer’s allegedly crime-filled morning occurred when a Baxter County deputy sheriff encountered a pickup truck on U.S. Highway 62/412 at Robinson Point Road. The truck was traveling 91 miles-per-hour, according to the deputy’s radar.
The truck was reported stolen only a short distance from the residence along County Road 390 in Baxter County where Lawyer is alleged to have made his first attempt to steal a vehicle.
The deputy began to chase the car, and a Baxter County criminal investigator joined the pursuit.
During the high-speed chase, Lawyer was reported to have run several cars off the road, passed on double yellow lines, as well as on hills and curves, with no apparent regard for the safety of oncoming traffic.
The pursuing lawmen reported reaching speeds of 110 miles-per-hour several times during the chase, according to court records.
As the pursuit rolled into Fulton County, Lawyer was alleged to have hit his brakes and then accelerate to a high speed.
Lawyer left the highway and began traveling down side roads. The Baxter County officers located the truck partially in a ditch at the side of the road. They reported approaching the vehicle with guns drawn since the driver’s side door was not open.
When they could see into the truck, it was found Lawyer had fled. As they were waiting for Fulton County Sheriff’s Office personnel to arrive, a call was made to request a dog tracking team from the Arkansas Department of Correction.
Lawyer next surfaced when he allegedly broke into the home of an elderly couple on Pickren Hall Road. The couple told investigators they woke up to find Lawyer in their bedroom.
They said he demanded pain pills. When told the couple had no such medication, Lawyer demanded they take him to Mountain Home or threatened he would hurt the husband.
Lawyer concealed himself as best he could in the couple’s extended cab pickup truck, and the husband and wife, both reported to be in fear for their lives, began to drive him to Mountain Home.
The trio encountered a roadblock set up by Fulton County deputies who reported they saw the truck approach, slow down and then speed up again.
The vehicle came to a stop at the roadblock, and the deputies saw Lawyer crouched down on the floor in the pickup.
The husband, who was driving, said Lawyer threatened to hurt the couple unless he tried to smash through the roadblock.
As Lawyer was being taken into custody, he insisted the driver of the pickup was his grandfather, although he did not know his name when asked.
When he was being removed from the vehicle in which he had hoped to make his escape, Lawyer was reported to have become verbally abusive toward the older man when he would not confirm for deputies that Lawyer was his grandson.
Even after being moved into the backseat of a patrol car, the Gassville man was reported to have continued to demand the older man identify himself as Lawyer’s relative.
As Fulton County Sheriff Al Roork was placing leg restraints on Lawyer, he pulled away and was reported to have tried to hit the sheriff in the face. He then said he was going to take the sheriff and a Fulton County deputy “out, and it was going to be quick.”
The new chase charges also resulted in petitions being filed seeking the revocation of probation sentences handed down in three 2012 Baxter County cases.
In the 2012 cases, Lawyer was charged with stealing a truck belonging to the Missouri-Arkansas Railroad, burglarizing a residence along East Front Street in Mountain Home and breaking into or attempting to break into a number of homes in the Indian Creek subdivision.
A revocation hearing is set for Baxter County Circuit Court Feb. 23.
Shortly before the two-county chase in Arkansas, Lawyer was released from the Missouri Department of Corrections. According to Missouri court records, Lawyer pled guilty to a charge of second-degree burglary and was sentenced to five years in prison in early April 2014.
Lawyer listed his address as Doniphan at the time he got in trouble in Missouri.
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