Tyler Dudley (Photo courtesy of Baxter County Sheriff’s Office)
Tyler Dudley of Flippin pled guilty to charges in several cases involving theft of mail, possession of drugs and commercial burglary and was given a seven-year prison sentence during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Monday.
The 29-year-old Dudley and 32-year-old Whitney Nicole Townsend, who lists an address in Yellville, were both involved in many of the acts charged in four cases – two in Baxter and two in Marion.
Townsend pled guilty to charges against her in June and was sentenced to five years-probation. A condition of her plea agreement required her to testify truthfully against Dudley if his case ever came to trial.
Dudley was reluctant to take the plea offer from the state. At one point, it was announced he was firing his lawyer and wanted to go to trial.
The next time he appeared, the lawyer was back on the case and Dudley took the plea.
In one case Dudley and Townsend were accused of stealing business checks on the account of a recycling firm that had shut down.
Investigators report one check was made out to Townsend for $395 and another for $400 to Dudley. The checks were noted as being proceeds from the sale of metal to be recycled.
Both of those checks were cashed by the same Mountain Home bank.
According to court records, the crimes allegedly committed by Dudley and Townsend took place in a short span of time in late 2022, continuing into the early months of 2023.
Another man, Dustin Sandoval, who lists an address along Arkansas Highway 201 South, also got in trouble for allegedly trying to cash a $3,000 check that he told investigators was provided to him by Dudley and Townsend.
He said Townsend made the check out, and he had driven to a branch bank in Gassville to try and cash it. A bank employee became suspicious and would not complete the transaction.
The check turned out to have been stolen. It was noted in the investigative report that Sandoval used his actual driver’s license as proof of identification during his attempt to cash the check.
Sandoval pled guilty to charges of forgery and theft by receiving and was sentenced to 10-years-probation in mid-July last year.
According to the probable cause affidavit in one Marion County case, Dudley was alleged to have been seen driving a vehicle along Broadway Street in Yellville.
The car would drive up to a mailbox and a person, believed to be Townsend, would reach into the mailbox and remove the contents.
The mail thefts also led to stealing blank checks and debit/credit cards.
During one of their arrests, they were found to have an air compressor that had been reported stolen from a residence in Yellville.
Dudley’s charges include possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia, commercial burglary and forgery.
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