Suspect in Alleged Police Cruiser Theft Indicted
By Betheny Holstein - The Wheeling Intelligence
Found on 03/28/03

A Jefferson County grand jury has indicted a Steubenville woman 
accused of stealing a police car while she was still a prisoner inside it.

Anna Leoni, 25, of 502 North St., Steubenville, was indicted for one count 
of robbery, one count of escape, one count of theft, one count of vandalism
two misdemeanor counts of falsification and one misdemeanor count of theft.

Before taking the car, Leoni had been arrested for falsification when
she attempted to rob a man with his utility knife in his vehicle as they
were driving south on Ohio 7. The man had allegedly given her a ride 
when she attempted to rob him.

When police questioned Leoni, she gave them a false name and identification,
resulting in her arrest prior to the theft of the police car.

Officers at the scene were reported to be gathering evidence, and even though 
all the car doors were locked and Leoni was handcuffed in the backseat, she 
managed to crawl into the front seat and steal the car.

She allegedly slipped the handcuffs from behind her back and under her body 
to be able to crawl through the divider in the car. She then drove away in 
the car, and police caught up with her a short distance later because she 
wrecked the cruiser at the southbound Logan Avenue exit in Mingo Junction.

The grand jury also returned indictments for the three cases that had been
under formal indictment in February of 2002 but were later dropped as a result
of an evidentiary exclusion by a judge on a related case. The cases were 
brought back because of an appellate court decision.

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