LITTLE ROCK — A Little Rock truck driver arrested with a trailer of stolen ham lost a bid to have his bail reduced Monday after a Pulaski County circuit judge heard that the man has picked up new felony charges since he’s been in jail.
Court files show that Robert McDowell Lee, 40,was charged with terroristic threatening on Dec. 5, accused of threatening to kill Sgt. Jason Bangs with the sheriff’s office.
And deputy prosecutor Scott Duncan told Judge Herb Wright that prosecutors are about to file a breaking or entering charge against McDowell over allegations he was seen breaking into a vending machine at the jail.
Lee was arrested on two felony counts of theft by receiving Nov. 29 after Little Rock police found him in the parking lot of Chicken Wangs restaurant on Chicot Road with the trailer full of ham, Duncan told the judge.
Lee had left Virginia with the load of hams on Nov. 14 and was supposed to deliver them to Miami on Nov. 15, Duncan said. The “significant” amount of meat Lee was transporting belonged to Smithfield Packing Co., the prosecutor said.
Lee’s attorney Colleen Barnhill asked the judge to release Lee on his own recognizance since Lee is a lifelong Little Rock resident who owns his trucking company, Macc Ten Trucking.
Duncan opposed the request to lower Lee’s $40,000 bail, telling the judge that Lee has an extensive criminal history and was most recently sent to prison in November 2011 for three years for two felony counts of drug possession and misdemeanor counts of fleeing, refusal to submit to arrest and disorderly conduct.
According to court files, Lee was the driver of a red Chevrolet pickup stopped by sheriff’s deputies operating a drunken-driving checkpoint at the intersection of 145thStreet and Rockbridge Road in March 2011.
Lee promised to pull off the road for the officers but instead kept driving, pursued by the officers to a home at 13823 Arkansas 365 where deputies used a stun gun twice on the belligerent Lee to take him into custody.
He surrendered when deputies threatened to use the stun gun on him a third time, court files show. The officers found PCP and marijuana in the pickup, according to the report.
Lee was also charged with misdemeanor driving while intoxicated, but the charge was dismissed after an unnamed prosecution witness failed to show up for Lee’s trial, court records show.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 02/05/2013