A man who had a failure to appear warrant issued in late 2020, returned to Baxter County Circuit Court Monday.
Thirty-eight-year-old Brandon Matthew Allen Farrell entered a guilty plea to drug-related charges and was put on probation for five years.
Farrell, who has listed addresses in Mountain Home and Mountain View on court documents, was declared a fugitive on Dec. 3 2020 when he failed to show up for a court-ordered appearance.
He was booked into the Baxter County Detention Center on the failure to appear warrant Mar. 3.
Farrell’s initial arrest came Nov. 3, 2020 after he was found in a truck parked in a non-working carwash stall in Mountain Home.
A passenger in the vehicle, 30-year-old Courtney Ramsey, who listed her place of residence as Forrest City, was also taken into custody.
Ramsey pled guilty in late January last year to the drug-related charges against her and was sentenced to four years probation.
Like her co-defendant, Ramsey did not willingly make herself available.
A petition to revoke her probation was filed in early June last year. The petition alleges Ramsey had not shown up for her initial intake, was avoiding all contact with her probation officer and her whereabouts were unknown.
Ramsey is still listed as a fugitive.
According to the probable cause affidavit in the case against Farrell and Ramsey, a Mountain Home police officer was on routine patrol about 11 p.m. on Nov. 3 last year, when he reported seeing a dark colored truck with its lights out backed into an inoperable carwash stall at 9th and College Streets.
The officer contacted Farrell and Ramsey to find out what they were doing there at that late hour.
Farrell is reported to have claimed he was picking up some tires he had left at the location.
Other officers arrived at the scene and one noticed two syringes in the pocket of the open door on the driver’s side of the truck.
Another syringe was located behind the rear passenger seat.
A further search of the truck and its contents turned up almost 15 grams of a substance field-testing positive for methamphetamine.
The suspected drug was in four bags concealed behind the small door covering the neck of the fuel tank.
Officers also found a jar with slightly more than 18 grams of marijuana seeds.
Farrell said the methamphetamine belonged to Ramsey, but when asked about ownership of the drug, Ramsey asked to speak to an attorney and questioning stopped.
As to what she was doing in Baxter County when arrested, Ramsey told the court, “I just happened to be up here.”
Forrest City is located in East Arkansas, about a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Mountain Home.
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