A 21-year-old Cabot man who killed a friend in a 2015 impaired-driving crash was sentenced Wednesday in Pulaski County to three years in prison for having a defaced firearm.
Joshua Lee Oswalt pleaded guilty to the Class D felony in Pulaski County Circuit Court in exchange for the sentence that will run concurrently with prison time he received in April in Lonoke County Circuit Court for felony negligent homicide and misdemeanor counts of driving while intoxicated, carrying a weapon and refusal to submit to arrest from two separate offenses.
He pleaded guilty to those charges on April 30 in exchange for a three-year prison term that will be followed by a three-year suspended sentence. A requirement of Oswalt's sentence is that he never contact the mother of the man who died in the driving-while-intoxicated crash.
In the Pulaski County case, Deputy Deshaun Thomas arrested Oswalt shortly before midnight on Oct. 29, after pulling over the white Chevrolet Impala the defendant was driving on East Maddox Road. The deputy had noticed a defective brake light, according to arrest reports.
A passenger ran from the car, but Thomas took Oswalt into custody at gunpoint when he tried to get out of the vehicle.
Oswalt said he knew the passenger as Joey, but could not remember his last name. The passenger could not be found, despite a manhunt that included Jacksonville police and Air Force security forces using dogs.
A search of Oswalt's car turned up a loaded Mossberg 500 12-gauge shotgun with its serial number scratched off, the arrest report states.
At the time of his arrest, Oswalt was free on bond from two arrests in Lonoke County.
He had been charged with negligent homicide and driving while intoxicated for the Aug. 17, 2015, single-car crash that killed 18-year-old Ronald Raymond Rowland of Cabot on Arkansas 367 South, just north of Cut Hill Road.
According to an arrest affidavit, Cabot police Sgt. Larry Thompson found a maroon Chevrolet Blazer on its side at the bottom of an embankment west of the highway. Rowland's body was outside the vehicle, but his right arm was trapped in the twisted metal of the passenger door. Thompson, hearing a faint voice on the other side of the vehicle, discovered the injured Oswalt in the woods near the sport utility vehicle.
The police investigation determined that Oswalt had been driving his SUV south on Arkansas 367 when he hit the bridge and guardrail at the right front bumper/quarter panel. The vehicle kept moving south after the impact, crossing both lanes before flipping at least once, with the two men and a second passenger ending up outside the Blazer.
That second passenger, Billy Cox, although "obviously involved" in the crash, declined medical attention, the affidavit states.
"I should have never got in the car with Josh because he was f* up on pills," Cox told Thompson several times, describing how Oswalt had been swerving while driving.
He told the investigator that Oswalt had been driving "with half his car over the white line" and that Oswalt had earlier clipped another bridge.
Cox also said that both Oswalt and Rowland had been taking the anti-anxiety prescription medication Xanax. A blood-test showed that Oswalt had in his system alprazolam, the generic name for Xanax, marijuana and methamphetamine.
In the other Lonoke County case, Oswalt was arrested on July 28, 2015, by Cabot police and state troopers who had been called to break up a fight at the Shell gas station on Arkansas 367.
The officers found Oswalt with two other men, Nathaniel Howell and Zackery Lee Barnes, who had been fighting.
Witnesses told police that Oswalt got what appeared to be a gun out of his car and began clubbing Howell as he fought with Barnes, according to an arrest affidavit.
Oswalt and Barnes were both taken into custody. Oswalt was charged with second-degree battery, but prosecutors dropped the felony charge when he pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charges related to having a weapon and his refusal to submit to arrest.
Barnes was charged with felony marijuana offenses after police found a partially smoked marijuana cigarette in his pants pocket and a search of the car he was in turned up a glass jar containing marijuana that he said was his.
Barnes, 20, of North Little Rock was sentenced to six years on probation and fined $1,000 after pleading guilty to marijuana trafficking in November 2015.
Metro on 05/12/2018