Photo: Nicholas Alan Kanta
A Mountain Home man arrested twice on drug charges in a span of 55 days entered a guilty plea during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday.
Thirty-five-year-old Nicholas Alan Kanta was sentenced to four years in one of the Community Correction Centers in the state. He will undergo addiction treatment. His attorney, Sam Pasthing, said Kanta admitted he needed help fighting a drug addiction.
A petition to revoke a 60-month probation sentence handed down in a 2016 drug case was dismissed by the state.
His latest charge accuses Kanta of fleeing from a Mountain Home police officer who had attempted to stop him on an active felony arrest warrant. The officer spotted Kanta driving a pickup truck June 2 and gave chase, after the Mountain Home man refused to pull over and began driving at what was reported to have been a high rate of speed.
During the pursuit, Kanta traveled down a number of streets, running stop signs and traveling near a school practice field being used by young people.
Kanta finally came to a stop in the parking lot of the Mountain Home Public School District’s administration building and was taken into custody. He was found to have a marijuana pipe in his pocket.
Kanta was charged with fleeing, possession of drug paraphernalia, reckless driving and failure to obey stop signs.
The first of his new cases was set up in early April, when officers went to Kanta’s known residence along Maple Street to conduct a compliance visit. Because Kanta was on probation at the time, he had a waiver on file permitting warrantless searches. The officers found two smoking pipes Kanta admitted were used to ingest marijuana. In addition, three used syringes were located behind a kitchen stove.
A set of digital scales was also found in the house and a white residue on the scales field tested positive for methamphetamine.
Kanta was taken from the court complex to the Baxter County jail to await transportation to a Community Correction Center.
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