Charges dropped against woman found with Alley
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The defendant, Heather D. Hawkins, 33, had the charge of prevention of a legal writ dismissed by prosecutors during preliminary hearing for her and the man officers say she was harboring, Anthony Steven Alley.
Alley, 31, already faces a mountain of charges for a series of crimes he allegedly committed shortly after he was freed from the penitentiary, most of the crimes having to do with evading capture by outrunning police.
‘It appears you can hide away in your house while the police are beating on your door and begging you to come out and it’s not a crime,’ said a disgusted Assistant Attorney General Tom Miner in revealing the state could not proceed on the hindering prosecution charges.
However, the two are not totally free of charges from the day of their capture as lawmen reported finding marijuana hidden under a mattress in the room where the two were hiding. Alley and Hawkins claimed they did not know the marijuana was there.
‘You’d have to be the unluckiest people in the world to pick that exact trailer, the exact mattress to be laying on at that exact time without knowing it was there,’ said General Sessions Judge Larry Ross in binding the two to the grand jury on drug possession charges.
The abundance of charges facing Alley include one set of charges for harassing a state trooper on the highway while he was accompanying a hearse transporting the body of his father, another set of charges for terrorizing a paper delivery person on the road, another set for running from police in the Westwood area at speeds up to 130 mph, and yet another set of charges for running from county officers in a stolen car. Most of the crimes were committed while Alley was free on bond for the original charge last year for harassment of the state trooper.
The charges which were leveled and then dropped against Hawkins were brought after lawmen found Alley hiding inside a trailer at Rocky River. SWAT team members say they called out for Alley to surrender but ended up having to force their way into the trailer where they found Alley and Hawkins hiding inside. The fact they did not answer the door, however, is not a crime.
Given the towering number of charges against him, Alley’s defense did retort on one charge, that being the stolen car charge. Specifically, the defense maintains Alley did not steal the car in question, but instead it was sold to him for $1,500 with the defense suggesting the person who allegedly sold him the car may have been high on drugs and not aware she actually sold the vehicle.
The defense pointed out Alley’s wife had the title to the car with a signature they say is that of the car’s former owner. However, the woman said she did not recall selling Alley the car, noting she would remember if she had. Alley was still bound on the theft charge as well as the evading arrest charges.