Greenfield resident Ashton Morris was sentenced last week in Highland County Common Pleas Court to 12 months in prison for failure to comply with the order or signal of a police officer, a third-degree felony.
A judgment entry from the Highland County Common Pleas Court said Morris, 27, had a previous felony or misdemeanor offense of violence in the last two years and that the most serious offense Morris was sentenced for wasn’t a fourth- or fifth-degree felony. The entry also said Morris committed the offense while under a community control sanction, on probation or while released from custody on a bond or personal recognizance.
The judgment entry said Morris must serve a “definite determinate term” of 12 months at the Corrections Reception Center in Orient. The entry also said Morris was given jail time credit of six days. It said a three-year period of supervision by the Adult Parole Authority after his release from prison is mandatory, and that his driver’s license was suspended for three years starting on Aug. 19, 2021.
The indictment said that on or around May 20, 2020, Morris willingly eluded or fled from a police officer in a vehicle he was driving after receiving a stop or audible signal from a police officer.
In other court news, a Hillsboro man was sentenced to three years of community control for one count of possession of cocaine, a fifth-degree felony, and one count of aggravated possession of methamphetamine, a fifth-degree felony.
The judgment entry from Highland County Common Pleas Court said Larry Smith II, 44, Hillsboro, was also accepted into the New Way to Recovery Drug Court Docket. Smith is required to comply with all the requirements and conditions of the drug court docket program.
The judgment entry also said if any of the community control sanctions or drug court docket conditions are violated, he would be terminated from the drug court and receive a 24-month sentence and a fine of $5,000.
According to a bill of particulars, on or around Nov. 8, 2020, an officer was on a patrol around Sixth Street and Jefferson Street in Greenfield when he saw a Mitsubishi Lancer on Jefferson Street without a functioning license plate light. The bill said that as the officer followed the vehicle, he saw that it began to pick up speed. The officer then activated his overhead lights on his patrol vehicle to initiate a traffic stop on the vehicle, but the driver of the fleeing vehicle traveled for several blocks before coming to a complete stop.
The bill said that before coming to a stop in the 600 block of Lyndon Avenue, the officer saw the driver throw a large amount of what looked to be cigarette packs out of the front passenger side window of the vehicle. When the vehicle came to a stop and the male driver was taken into custody, the officer returned to where he saw the driver throw the cigarette packs out of the vehicle. When the officer located the cigarette packs, he saw multiple plastic baggies containing powdery substances inside the packs. The officer then placed all if the cigarette packs into an evidence bag and returned to his patrol vehicle.
The officer arrived at the Greenfield Police Department with the male driver that was later identified as Smith, who said the yellow Lancer did not belong to him and claimed he had no knowledge of throwing anything out of the vehicle’s window. The plastic baggies were submitted to BCI for analysis where multiple baggies were found to contain methamphetamine and one baggie was found to contain cocaine.
Reach Jacob Clary at 937-402-2570.
