Mississippi Man Pleads Guilty to Theft of Deputy’s Car
Franklin County Times - Banner, Mississippi
02/04/04 - By Jason Houston
A man who was arrested in September in relation to the theft of a deputy’s cruiser after a high-speed chase pleaded guilty to the crime Monday in Circuit Court.
Franklin County District Attorney John Pilati said Marty Burney, 22, of 8308 Fairview Road in Banner, Mississippi, pleaded guilty to first-degree theft of property and was sentenced to eight years in prison.
According to Franklin County Sheriff’s Department officials, the case began when a sheriff’s deputy attempted to pull a car over in the Vina area in September for a traffic violation.
The driver of the car, which contained three other passengers, refused to stop, leading to a chase.
The vehicle eventually wrecked on Renfroe Road in Vina, and two of the four passengers in the car fled on foot. The other two were arrested at that point.
With the two arrested men in custody, officers began searching for the other two men, investigators said. The search ranged far off the road where the accident took place, and lasted more than an hour.
During the search, the two men somehow doubled back to the original accident scene and managed to jump in a deputy’s car and leave the scene, officials said.
The vehicle was recovered a few hours later in Mississippi and Burney was arrested the next day in relation to the case.
"(Burney) really created a mountain out of a molehill," Pilati said. Whatever trouble he was in from the traffic stop was nothing compared to him stealing the police car and going into another state with it."
Burney was also ordered to pay restitution to the Franklin County Commission for damage done to the sheriff’s car and to the deputy for some stolen equipment, Pilati said.