Just an hour after a 19-year-old visitor from South Carolina allegedly bloodied a local man and stole his car at a Charlottesville-area gas station, his southbound getaway unraveled in Amherst County with a flat tire.
Jareece Caleel Breeden was pulled over on U.S. 29 by an Amherst County sheriff’s deputy who quickly realized the vehicle had been stolen.
Earlier this year, Breeden — a former high school basketball standout — was sentenced to two years in prison for what authorities initially charged as carjacking.
According to court records, the crime occurred shortly after midnight on April 14, 2024. Local resident Danilo Polintan was filling his gas tank at the Exxon station at Oak Hill Market & Deli on Country Green Road when he was approached by a tall man wearing a hoodie and a bandana.
"The victim resisted, and the suspect attacked him by striking him in the face multiple times with his fist," wrote Albemarle County police officer Tayvaun Richardson in a criminal complaint.
By the time police arrived at the market, the attacker had left with the victim’s car and his cellphone. But there was evidence left behind: blood splatter by pump No. 2, a black hooded sweatshirt discarded on the pavement and a red Ford Fusion parked nearby with Breeden’s driver’s license in "plain view" on the driver’s seat.
Breeden was arrested in Amherst County after the flat tire brought him to an unplanned stop. But why a traveler would act so violently and bring one car to steal another were aspects of the case never explained in court papers or inside the courtroom.
When he entered guilty pleas in Albemarle County Circuit Court on Jan. 29 of this year, Breeden was convicted of grand larceny and saw the carjacking charge downgraded to an unlawful wounding conviction. Robbery and assault charges had already been dropped by a lower court.
Despite prompting by the judge, Breeden declined to say anything about his case, and defense attorney Bryan Jones also declined comment outside the courtroom when approached by The Daily Progress.
Inside the courtroom, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Pollock told the judge that when her office initially presented a plea agreement to the court in October, prosecutors agreed to cap the penalty at one year in order to make Breeden eligible for CCAP, the state’s community corrections alternative program, an education-based alternative to traditional incarceration.
But CCAP rejected him, Pollock said, because its officials deemed Breeden, who has no criminal history, unlikely to reoffend. That meant that the originally contemplated punishment of two active years was back on the table. And that’s what Judge Cheryl Higgins decreed.
Higgins set a total sentence of 25 years with 23 years suspended on condition of 25 years of good behavior, ordered two years of supervised probation and demanded that Breeden cooperate with substance abuse and mental health evaluations. Per state law in automobile grand larceny cases, she also suspended Breeden’s driver’s license for six months.
Breeden hails from a South Carolina suburb of Charlotte called Fort Mill. A 2023 graduate of Indian Land High School, the 6-foot-7 forward averaged nearly 10 points per game, was ranked No. 143 statewide and was recruited by Newberry College. At the time of his arrest he told a magistrate he earned money through sponsorships. He also told the magistrate he had only been in Central Virginia for one day.
Initially jailed at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, Breeden is currently housed at Sussex I State Prison in southeastern Virginia. His projected release date is Oct. 1.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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