Bonnaroo visitor given three days in jail

A Bonnaroo visitor gone wild will serve three days in the county jail after he terrorized a local family this summer, subsequently admitting he must have suffered from a case of road rage.

‘I have no excuse,’ said Jason Lee Belt, 31, of Scranton, Pa., as he entered his plea Tuesday to the charge of reckless endangerment before General Sessions Judge Larry Ross. Belt was directed to serve three days of an 11-month, 29-day sentence.

Belt was passing through Warren County in June on his way home from Bonnaroo when he claimed someone threw a bottle at his vehicle. However, the victims in the case, a couple and their small children, said they had simply pulled onto Manchester Highway and had no knowledge of who, if anyone, had incited Belt.

Instead, the victims say Belt ran up behind them in his vehicle, traveling, according to the warrant, at an estimated 80 mph before blowing past them on the four-lane highway, yelling obscenities and making obscene gestures.

Once in front of them, the victims said Belt began slamming on his brakes trying to make them run into the rear of his vehicle. The victims say he also threw objects at their vehicle, several of them hitting their pickup as they continued down Manchester Highway even as they were calling 911 by cellphone.

The angry motorist then pulled alongside the family’s truck and began stabbing at their side window with a long knife before finally backing off when the victims refused to pull over for him.

After hearing the story, Judge Ross suggested Belt was a lucky man, given the fact he could have seriously injured someone, or been killed himself.

‘You’re in the South. Someone could have just stopped and told you to come on up there,’ Ross said. ‘You’re lucky someone didn’t shoot you.’

Belt will be allowed to mail in his probation reports from Scranton as the judge will allow him to stay in his hometown during his probationary period since he has a job and it would be cost-prohibitive for him to relocate here to serve his probation.