The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1331323
B-2 Wednesday, Januar y 20, 2021 The Press-Dispatch By Andy Heuring An Oakland City man was arrested after he set up a meeting to have sex with who he thought was a 14-year- old girl. Instead, when he ar- rived, he learned instead of a 14-year-old girl, he was meet- ing Petersburg Police Sgt. Chad McClellan. Jason R. Williams, 33, of 122 S. Lucretia St., Oakland City, was arrested on a charge of child solicitation, child less than 16 years old, previous un- related conviction, a level 4 fel- ony. According to a sworn proba- ble cause affidavit, Petersburg Sgt. Chad McClellan said Wil- liams contacted a decoy, de- ployed by Petersburg Police, on social media at about 4 p.m. Wednesday, January 13. The decoy was a profile of a 14-year-old girl. McClellan said he received a message from Williams stat- ing, "Um, hey there, cutie." According to McClellan, Williams identified himself as a 33-year-old and asked the girl's age, and was told she was 14. McClellan said Williams had a "highly sexualized con- versation," including asking the girl to engage in sexual acts and told her he wanted to have sex with her. "He made first contact at 4 p.m. and by 6 p.m., he had al- ready made the trip to meet her," said McClellan. According to the affidavit, Williams arranged to meet her at the Huck's parking lot in Petersburg. McClellan said he checked what kind of vehi- cle Williams owned after Wil- liams arrived at Huck's and parked in front of the door. McClellan pulled in behind him. "He looked just like pic- tures he had sent to the de- coy." McClellan said "Williams' backup lights came on and he tried to back up, but he was ordered to stop and get out of the vehicle." During an inventory of the vehicle, McClellan said police found a cellphone and loaded handgun. According to the affidavit, during a recorded interview, Williams admitted contacting the decoy, but said he "didn't think he would have had sex with her, but admitted he had sent the message making plans to meet for sex." A level 4 felony is punish- able by an advisory sentence of 6 years, with a range of two to 12 years. Jason Williams charged with child solicitation after contacting 'decoy' By Andy Heuring Pike County's School board accepted a bid for more than $1 million for renovation on their swimming pool, tabled a contract to lease school bus- es and made several appoint- ments in their meeting last Tuesday. School board members vot- ed 3-2 to accept the low bid of $1,004,800 from Krempf of Jasper. Chris Satterfield and Howard Knight voted against the measure. Kremp was one of five bids received on the pool project. The others were Deig Bros. of Evansville $1,239,745 base bid, Alt 1 $114,400, Alt. 2 $4,800 ; Garmong of Terre Haute $1,275,00, Alt. 1 $29,600, Alt. 2 $4,800 ; Seufert of Huntingburg $1,163,000, Alt. 1 $5,033, Alt. 2 $5,130 ; and Danco with a base bid of $1,229,000, Alt. 1 $19,500 and Alt. 2 $ 3,600. "We have had work session after work session and gone over everything we can. I'm going to make a motion to go with Kremp," said Chris McK- inney. Superintendent of Schools Dr. Suzanne Blake said it was going to be a tight window for them to get started after swim season and be finished before swim season starts next school year. Krempf's contract called for 165 days to complete. The contract calls for re- moval of ceiling tiles, coat- ing exposed beams above the ceiling tile, re-coating the floor deck surrounding the pool, replacing the air handler unit, relocating duct work to run along exterior walls, re- placing the lighting and rein- forcing the steel beams along the walls. Alternate 1 was to replace all wall tiles instead of just the ones near the beams. Al- ternate 2 is to paint all the wall area above the tile, not just the part above the removed ceil- ing tiles. School board members con- sidered signing a lease for 15 buses for five years at a price of $13,851 per bus per year, plus three 66 -passenger bus- es for five years at a price of $14,486 with Midwest Transit Equipment of Whitestown. Delivery was to be on July 1, 2021, with payments to begin the same month. "We have found it beneficial to have the buses leased," said Blake. She added they have saved a large amount of money by not hav- ing to pay for repairs. Support Services Director Todd Harker said the lease is for 15,000 miles per year. How- ever, on the document given to them, it had 12,000 miles marked out with 15,000 writ- ten above it. Board president Steve Pot- ter asked if they had trouble staying under 15,000 miles per year with the buses. Har- ker said they had one bus they substituted for because it was getting close. Chris McKinney asked about 12,000 marked out and 15,000 written above it. Harker said the company had put the wrong number on it and had agreed to it being 15,000 miles. Harker then said he would contact the company to veri- fy it. So the board moved on- to other items. But at the end of the meeting, McKinney moved to table the matter until they could get it worked out. Dr. Blake told the board, after several meetings with engineers and looking in- to alternate water sources, it appears they won't have to build a new water tower. She said if they had an emergen- cy lift station in place and Pe- tersburg's new water tower in place, the school won't have to build a new water tower. Last year, they started looking in- to rehabbing the original wa- ter tower at the school. Blake said the more they looked into it, the more they found wrong with it. Eventually, it was cost prohibitive to repair it. However, because Peters- burg is building a new water tower at the top of "Half-Mile Hill," it will provide enough water for the school. She said this would be a considerable savings for the school. Esti- mates for the rehab were ap- proaching $1.4 million. In other business, the school board voted to sub- scribe to a new app that would integrate all the corporation's social media platforms into one. Assistant Superintendent Dana Deffendoll said the Appt- egy was a much easier to use system than they are current- ly using. She said after look- ing into Apptegy, it has a 99 percent retention rate of their current subscribers. She said it also offers them a one-year contract instead of a multi- year contract. She said it is only $1,800 more a year. Board members voted 5 -0 to approve the new system. The school board reorga- nized by keeping their offi- cers the same on a motion by Chris Satterfield. Steve Potter was reinstalled as president. They also voted to keep Chel- sea Yon as treasurer and ex- ecutive secretary of the Pike County School Corp. Board of Trustees. Lorice Chamber- lain was reappointed as depu- ty treasurer. In other personnel mat- ters, they accepted a medical leave for an unnamed teacher at Pike Central Middle School until February 22. They also named Alexa Schooler as varsity assistant and Sydney Brooks as a volun- teer JV coach of the girls' soft- ball team. The next school board meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday, February 9. School board accepts pool repair bid, makes appointments Police also began a search of the area using a State Police helicopter and at least two police dogs. They also went through the area, warning res- idents to lock their doors and not let anyone in. "Public safety is always our top priority," said State Police Public Information Officer David Henderson about the search and warnings to area residents. Police from numerous agen- cies searched the area but were unable to locate the two men. A search warrant on the vehicle was obtained on the grounds the vehicle was be- ing used to deal marijuana. Police impounded 155 pounds of marijuana from the Lincoln, a cellphone and 3,740.00 in Mexican currency. The description of the mar- ijuana included one sealed black plastic bag contain- ing 53 pounds of marijua- na wrapped in smaller pack- ages, a purple suitcase con- taining 10 clear plastic bags with plant material, and sev- en more sealed brown paper bags containing between four to 18 clear plastic bags of plant material believed to be mari- juana. Besides the phone and Mexican currency, they al- so found a sealed manila en- velope containing "miscella- neous papers." At about midnight, Pike County Central Dispatch got a call from a resident, near CR 1000 E. and 850 S., about a vehicle driving up and down a driveway. Pike County Dep- uty Sheriff Jared Simmons went to the area. In a probable cause affidavit, Simmons said he thought the vehicle might be there trying to pick up the two men who fled on foot from a car they parked in the area. It was described as an SUV with abnormally large tail- lights. Simmons said while enroute to the area, he passed a Chev- rolet SUV with large taillights on SR 64. He turned around and caught up to it near Ad- vanced Disposal. Deputy Sim- mons said it was driving down the middle of the road at about 52 mph. Simmons stopped the vehicle and identified the driv- er as Ezequiel Ruboi Garcia, 24, of Granite City, Ill. Simmons said Garcia gave him a Mexico ID and said he didn't have a valid US driver's license. According to a probable cause affidavit, Garcia said he was on his way home from work and he lived in Illinois. He also told Deputy Sim- mons he couldn't speak En- glish well and asked him to call his wife so she could translate. Simmons used Gar- cia's phone to make the call. The screen on the phone had a picture of a maroon MKT Lincoln SUV that matched the description of the impounded vehicle that had been in the chase earlier in the day. It also showed the location of where the vehicle was left. Garcia was placed in hand- cuffs and arrested on a charge of operator never licensed. CHASE Continued from page 1 Down with the decorations Volunteers worked Thursday afternoon to take down and store the decorations and light show at Hornady Park. Above, Lowell Thomas, left, Jim Jeffries and Silas Ashley disassemble the lighted arch near the log cab- in after it had been lowered to the ground by Alan Tegmeyer, using the city bucket truck. The decorations throughout the park were loaded onto a trailer and placed in storage until November 2021, when they will be on display through the Christmas season. The decorations are placed and removed each year by volunteers from area churches, and donations from visitors are used by the Ministerial Alliance. By Andy Heuring A 30 -year-old Chrisney man was arrested for drunken driv- ing after driving away from a liquor store without his head- lights on. Christopher Weltz was ar- rested at about 8:30 p.m. on January 8 by Petersburg Pa- trolman Bryce Manning and Sgt. Chad McClellan. Patrolman Manning said he and Sgt. McClellan were sitting near the intersection of Ninth and Main sts. when they noticed a silver Nissan Altima leave the liquor store and start driving east on Main St. with no headlights on. It then turned south on- to Ninth St. and they pulled it over. Manning said he talk- ed with Weltz and noticed his eyes were very watery and glossy, and his speech was slurred. Weltz denied having any- thing to drink. Sgt. McClellan said while talking with Weltz, he noticed the odor of alcohol. Weltz failed field sobriety tests and was taken to the Pike County Jail, where he tested 0.089 percent for blood alcohol content. The legal lim- it in Indiana for driving is 0.08 percent. He was charged with oper- ating a vehicle with 0.08 per- cent or more blood alcohol content. Chrisney man charged with OVWI By Andy Heuring A Newburgh man was ar- rested late Sunday night af- ter he drove through an ac- cident scene and didn't move over on I-69. Chayanne Aragon Guzman, 30, of Newburgh, was arrested on charged with reckless driv- ing, operator never licensed, possession of marijuana and possession of paraphernalia. Pike County Sheriff's Sgt. Buck Seger said he was assist- ing with an accident on I-69, near the 50.5 -mile marker, at about 11:30 p.m. when he no- ticed a Ford Mustang fail to move over for emergency vehi- cles and their flashing lights. Sgt. Seger said the Mustang drove through the crash scene at 65 mph, despite the slick road conditions due to snow. He wasn't able to leave the ac- cident scene. But a few min- utes later, he was notified by Pike Co. Central Dispatch of another crash at the 52.5 -mile mark. Sgt. Seger, in his report, stated when he arrived at the second crash scene, he found it was the same Mustang that had driven through the first accident scene. He said it looked like the Mustang lost control on the ice-covered roadway, hit a guard rail and went into the median, coming to a stop about 200 feet later. Guzman told police he had never had a United States driv- er's license, but provided a United States residence card. Sgt. Seger said a Daviess County deputy had gotten to the scene first and told him Guzman said he had marijua- na in the vehicle. When police searched the vehicle, owned by Melvin Ivan Chavez, also of New- burgh, they found a plastic bag in the console containing a glass pipe with a black burnt residue that field tested posi- tive for marijuana, along with plant material testing positive for marijuana. Guzman was taken into cus- tody. Newburgh man arrested on multiple charges after driving through crash scene, wrecking *APR= Annual Percentage Rate. 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