New Members of the Waynesville Police Department

Community, Police & Government

Last week we welcomed Josh Williams and Amanda Collins to the Waynesville Police Department. Join us in wishing them well as they start their Field Training Phase and begin serving the citizens of Waynesville!

Former-Haywood man pleas guilty to trafficking opiates

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A former Haywood County resident will spend from 70 to 93 months in prison after admitting this week in Jackson County Superior Court to drug- and firearm-related charges.

District Attorney Ashley Hornsby Welch said Jon Banton Legere, 45, who has at various times listed addresses in Canton, Cullowhee, and Sylva, pleaded guilty Monday to possession firearm by felon, larceny of a firearm and trafficking in opiates by transportation.

The charges stem from two separate traffic stops that occurred last spring.

On March 4, an officer with Sylva Police Department observed Legere, whose license had been revoked, driving a vehicle on Cope Creek Road toward N.C. 107.

After the officer stopped Legere, a drug dog alerted on the vehicle’s driver door. The officer found a pipe with white substance on its end. A stolen pistol was hidden in a hole beneath the steering wheel.

Legere was convicted in 1995 in Cumberland County of four counts breaking and entering. State law prohibits convicted felons from possessing firearms.

On April 9, a deputy with Jackson County Sheriff’s Office stopped Legere on Grindstaff Cove Road, again driving with a revoked license. Additionally, there was an outstanding warrant for Legere’s arrest.

In the vehicle, the deputy and Sylva Police Department officers discovered a baggie containing 9.80 ounces of fentanyl and fentanyl precursors, as well as scales and a revolver and bullets. The items were hidden behind a false panel near the fuse box.

“It was a dangerous cocktail of illegal drugs,” Assistant District Attorney Chris Matheson said.

Matheson prosecuted the case. Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Bradley B. Letts handed down the mandatory minimum sentence.

Haywood man receives maximum sentence for fatal DWI-related car crash

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DWI
District Attorney Ashley Hornsby Welch said a Haywood County man will serve the maximum sentence possible in prison after entering Alford pleas Friday in Macon County Superior Court to a DWI crash that left two dead.
Suspects who enter Alford pleas do not admit guilt but accept there is sufficient evidence to convict and agree to be treated as guilty.
A blood sample showed Jeremy Michael Clark, 28, of Canton, had used methamphetamine prior to an Oct. 31, 2018, wreck on U.S. 64 near Winding Stairs Gap in Macon County.
While heading west, his pickup truck crossed the two-lane highway’s centerline and smashed head-on into a vehicle heading east.
Clark’s girlfriend Megan Lurae James, 26, the mother of their two children and a passenger in the truck, died at the scene. Sixty-year-old Roger Dooley of Lake Wales, Florida, who was driving the vehicle Clark’s truck hit, died seven days later in a Georgia medical center.
Roger Dooley’s wife, Brenda Dooley, was airlifted to Mission Hospital in Asheville with life-threatening injuries, including multiple broken bones and a lacerated spleen.
Roger and Brenda Dooley were married for 23 years and had three sons between them.
“I’m here to give a voice to my husband and myself,” Brenda Dooley told Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Bill Coward in a victim-impact statement.
She recounted her husband saying, just prior to the crash, “This guy is going to hit us head on, and I’ve got nowhere to go.” She looked up from reading a magazine to see Clark’s truck in front of their vehicle.
Michelle McGuinness, Megan James’ mother, also provided a victim-impact statement. She spoke directly to Clark, saying,
“You have ruined so many lives because of your actions.”
Assistant district attorneys Jason Arnold and Jim Moore prosecuted the case.
“As the court decides the path forward, the victims have come into this court for active consecutive sentences,” Arnold told Judge Coward. “As this court makes its search for justice in this case, the state of North Carolina (the District Attorney’s Office) can’t see how you could reach any other determination.”
Judge Coward sentenced Clark to a total time of 165 to 232 months for two counts of felony death by vehicle and felony serious injury by vehicle.
He ordered Clark to pay $7,840 in court fees, submit a DNA sample and undergo a substance-abuse assessment.

Guatemalan school teacher plead guilty to two counts of second-degree forcible sex offense

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guatemalan school teacher guilty
Using threats of harm to the victim’s family, a Guatemalan school teacher sexually abused a teen in that country and, in 2018, from August into November, in Haywood County.
On June 10, following jury selection the previous day for the Haywood County Superior Court trial of Jose Vicente Ax Sub, 37, Assistant District Attorney Kate Robinette won a 404B pretrial motion.
Senior Resident Bradley B. Letts’ decision would have opened the door for Robinette to admit prior, bad-act evidence involving Ax Sub.
Instead of proceeding with the trial, however, Ax Sub opted to plead guilty two counts of second-degree forcible sex offense, District Attorney Ashley Hornsby Welch said.
Letts sentenced Ax Sub to 10 years in prison in the N.C. Department of Corrections.
“On Nov. 7, 2018, after the worst beating by the defendant yet, the victim got the courage to leave the defendant and sought out shelter,” Robinette told the judge.
“The defendant then left threatening messages for the victim, stating that he would harm him and his family if the victim did not return. The victim told his boss what had been going on, and the boss took the victim to Haywood County Sheriff’s Office for help.”
The FBI and Maggie Valley Police Department investigated the case.

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