By Ray King
The Arkansas Court of Appeals on Wednesday rejected the appeal of a Grant County man whose probation was revoked and sent to prison on drug related charges.
Robert Eugene Dyas, 60, had contended that there was insufficient evidence to revoke his probation and his resentencing constituted double jeopardy, but the appeals court disagreed.
Dyas was charged with possession of methamphetamine with purpose to deliver and possession of drug paraphernalia on April 15, 2016. The possession of drug paraphernalia charge was dismissed as part of a plea agreement and Dyas pleaded guilty to possession of methamphetamine with purpose to deliver on Aug. 11, 2016. He was sentenced to eight years probation.
Just over a month later, the state filed a petition to revoke that probation, alleging that Dyas had violated five terms of the probation. An amended petition was filed on Oct. 10, 2017 and a second amended petition was filed Dec. 4, 2017. That was followed by a third amended petition alleging probation violations filed Jan. 24, 2019.
A hearing was held on Feb. 4, 2019 and Grant County Judge Eddie Easley found that Dyas had violated the conditions of his probation and sentenced Dyas to one year in the Arkansas Community Corrections drug program. After it was determined that Dyas could not serve that sentence due to medical conditions, Dyas was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
At the hearing, Dyas’ probation officer testified that he had failed to report to the probation office, tested positive for possession of a controlled substance, committed new offenses, failed to pay fines and costs, and failing to prove he was disabled.
Those new offenses included being charged with possession of possession of a controlled substance methamphetamine or cocaine and possession of drug paraphernalia in Jefferson County.
Dyas subsequently pleaded guilty to the Jefferson County charges and was sentenced to prison with that sentence to run concurrently with is sentence from Grant County.
Testifying in his own defense, Dyas said he had undergone three surgeries involving a partial foot amputation and said he did not report to his probation officer because of transportation issues.
Writing for the appeals court, Judge Raymond Abramson said the circuit court was correct to revoke Dyas’ probation and sentence him accordingly.
The appeals court also approved a request from Dyas’ attorney to withdraw after the attorney filed legal documents showing that there was no merit to the appeal.
Dyas is currently serving his sentence at the East Arkansas Regional Unit at Brickey’s and will be eligible to apply for parole in August 2021.
