Photo: Dylan Ozzy Lawyer
A Gassville man, who faced charges in two counties stemming from a high-speed pursuit in early July last year, entered a plea of guilty to his Baxter County charges earlier this month.
The plea came during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court.
Twenty-six-year-old Dylan Ozzy Lawyer was sentenced to 28 years on his Baxter County charges. He had entered a plea to his more serious Fulton County charges in January and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
The sentence in Baxter County will run simultaneously with the one imposed in Fulton County.
Lawyer is an inmate in the Cummins Unit of the state prison system at Grady.
Combining the charges from both counties initially filed against Lawyer, he was accused of breaking or entering, kidnapping, false imprisonment, fleeing, aggravated residential burglary, aggravated assault, terroristic threatening, and theft of property, being a felon in possession of a firearm and being a habitual offender.
The kidnapping and false imprisonment charges stem from Lawyer allegedly breaking into a home of an elderly couple in Fulton County and forcing them to help him try to escape from the area.
According to probable cause affidavits filed in the chase cases, the events resulting in Lawyer’s charges and prison sentences 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, broke into a vehicle parked at a house located along Baxter County Road 390 and damaged the dash in an attempt to start it.
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 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 wanted “pain pills.” When told the couple had no such medication, Lawyer demanded they take him to Mountain Home or threatened to 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 repeated threats to harm 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 Lawyer was his grandson.
Even after being moved into the backseat of a patrol car, Lawyer 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 chase charges also resulted in petitions being filed seeking the revocation of probation sentences handed down in three 2012 Baxter County cases. Those revocations petitions were dismissed by the state as part of the plea agreement.
Shortly before the two-county chase in Arkansas, Lawyer had been released from the Missouri Department of Correction. 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.
Mountain Home attorney Ben Burnett represented Lawyer in both counties on the charges stemming from last year’s chase.
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