A local woman was sentenced to six years in prison Monday after pleading guilty to leading Arkansas State Police on a lengthy high-speed pursuit earlier this year with a 7-year-old boy in the car with her.
Christine Deann Rodriguez, 33, who has remained in custody in lieu of $10,000 bond since her arrest Aug. 15, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of fleeing and was sentenced to the maximum of six years in prison while an additional felony charge of first-degree endangering the welfare of a minor was amended to a misdemeanor count of second-degree endangering.
Her sentence will run concurrently with two 6-year sentences for the revocation of her probation for previous convictions on Aug. 6, 2018, for possession of a controlled substance, meth, two counts of possession of drug paraphernalia and two counts of possession of a controlled substance with purpose to deliver involving oxycodone and hydromorphone.
Additional misdemeanor counts of first-degree reckless driving, driving the wrong way on a one-way roadway, driving left of center, failure to yield to a stop sign and having defective vehicle lights were adjudicated by time served.
According to the probable cause affidavit, on Aug. 15, around 9 p.m., ASP Trooper Dylan Robbins was patrolling westbound on East Grand Avenue near Spring Street when he got behind a white passenger car with a broken taillight and activated his lights to make a traffic stop.
The driver, later identified as Rodriguez, refused to stop and continued west on Grand, turning onto Valley Street and continuing south as Robbins activated his siren and radioed dispatch about the situation.
The car turned onto West Belding Street and then onto Shady Grove Road where Rodriguez began to speed up and continued to Carpenter Dam Road and then to the on-ramp to the King Expressway with Robbins in pursuit.
At that point, Robbins attempted a PIT maneuver on the car, causing it to veer into a ditch on the right side. Rodriguez "made it out of the ditch" and continued west driving the wrong way along the on ramp and then turned back onto Carpenter Dam.
ASP Sgt. Jorge Oseguera took over the lead in the pursuit and followed Rodriguez south on Carpenter Dam to Highway 290 where she continued south, crossing Highway 7 onto Albright Road, running a stop sign in the process. It continued onto Thunder Road where Robbins took the lead again.
Rodriguez turned onto Amity Road and Robbins attempted a PIT maneuver again and this time the car lost control and finally stopped in the westbound lane of Amity. Robbins was able to get Rodriguez out of the car and take her into custody.
Robbins discovered she had a 7-year-old boy and an adult male, 30, as passengers in the car.
The affidavit notes, "The driver did not take into concern the value of human life and drove the vehicle in such a manner that created a substantial danger of death or serious physical injury to another person." It also noted she failed to yield at every intersection during the pursuit and crossed the centerline into oncoming traffic several times.
Local on 11/26/2019