A Gordonsville man with lengthy record remains jailed without bail since his late September arrest after an automobile pursuit that ended when the tires came off his car.
Adam Ryan Martin, 38, was arrested on Sept. 29 and charged with two offenses in Albemarle County, obstructing justice and assaulting an officer, in addition to three drug offenses and one eluding charge from Augusta County, where the chase began.
"It started in Augusta and ended in Albemarle," Lt. Leslie Schneider of the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office told The Daily Progress. "They put out the spike strips, and his tires deflated, and he just kept driving on the rims."
Martin’s latest trouble began in the early morning hours of Sept. 29 on the Shenandoah Valley side of Afton Mountain. An Augusta County sheriff’s deputy on routine patrol around U.S. 250 reportedly spotted a black Infiniti that had been the subject of multiple pursuits by several law enforcement agencies including Virginia State Police, according to the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office.
A check of the license plates found that the registration belonged to another vehicle, and shortly after 3:30 a.m. the deputy began a pursuit, according to the sheriff’s narrative.
As the chase moved to Interstate 64 heading east into Albemarle County, Albemarle police then pitched in by deploying spike strips, according to the narrative.
"The suspect vehicle continued to drive on Dudley Mountain Road in Albemarle County at reduced speeds, and losing several tires," according to the sheriff’s office.
Eventually, the narrative continued, the driver lost control and crashed down an embankment at the intersection of Dudley Mountain Road and Red Hill Road and fled on foot.
"Once the deputy got within an arm reach of the male suspect, the male suspect turned on the deputy in a fighting stance," according to the narrative. "There was a physical altercation between Martin and an Augusta County Sheriff’s Deputy while taking him into custody."
That was Deputy M. Stutes who was trying to put handcuffs on Martin, according the Albemarle County General District Court file.
"Martin had resisted by flight and had pushed me down into water and continued until he was escorted to ground," Stutes wrote on the arrest warrant.
The intersection where the Inifiniti crashed terminates at the north fork of the Hardware River, but whether the fracas ended up in that waterway was left unsaid in the documents.
Left behind in the Infiniti was a female passenger who was detained, according to the sheriff’s narrative.
In deciding against bail, an Albemarle County magistrate simply wrote "extensive" in the space usually reserved for a recitation of the person’s prior record.
Martin’s legal problems appear to have started in 2005, when as a 21-year-old, he was arrested for burglary and grand larceny in Fluvanna County. He was convicted of both charges and has spent the subsequent 18 years in and out of jails after a spate of other offenses that include unlawful wounding and receiving stolen property as well as six probation violations. At the time of his most recent arrest, he was sought on a fentanyl possession charge in Fluvanna County.
The court file indicates that he has hired veteran defense attorney Mike Hallahan to represent him in Albemarle County court. In Augusta County, he will be represented by the Office of the Public Defender. His next Albemarle hearing is slated for Nov. 16.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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