![]() The assault charges were dropped by the prosecutor, and Oxendine pleaded guilty to all other charges. Oxendine was arrested in South Carolina for the first time in August 2003 and charged with assault, felony malicious injury to an animal, resisting arrest, and failing to pull over for police, all from the same incident. Over the next decade, he bounced back and forth between courts in both Carolinas on various charges. His first known appearance in the criminal justice system was at age 19 for bootlegging in Richmond County, North Carolina, in 2001, a misdemeanor. The scope of Oxendine’s activity means there are gaps in information concerning his criminal convictions and sentencings, but from available documents, it appears Oxendine has spent little time behind bars, serving about one year in jail for 14 convicted felonies in North Carolina alone. Oxendine’s criminal history is extensive, spanning at least four states on both sides of the country and dozens of criminal charges over a decade and a half. Oxendine is 33 years old and a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, a mixed-race tribe best known for being the largest federally unrecognized Native group in America and for routing the Ku Klux Klan in the 1958 Battle of Hayes Pond. The federal charges Oxendine now faces for his crimes in Montana may put him behind bars permanently, but if he manages to avoid a harsh sentence for his felony convictions, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time. Oxendine’s criminal record shows a history of light sentencing, second chances, and the failure by separate court jurisdictions to take into account his probationary status in other states, even as the danger he posed to those around him escalated. More shocking still was that the man had fired a gun at associates in Anaconda and Butte at least five times for offenses as slight as dropping the bong.īut most shocking is that Lester Oxendine had managed to get away with so much for so long. It was shocking when a man was arrested in broad daylight in busy Uptown Butte this time last year by a swarm of armed police.Īlso shocking was the man’s admission to police that he had trafficked over 40 pounds of meth in the community in the last six months. ![]() Author hillarysafarik Posted on DecemFebruCategories News Article Meth series: Butte meth dealer facing life in prison has history of light sentences “I know we see a lot of it - it’s sad,” said O’Brien. Since joining the Butte-Silver Bow police force over four years ago, he said the city has seen a huge increase in meth use. He recalled hearing “meth stories” from many of the inmates during his two years at the county jail. O’Brien’s work in corrections exposed him to youth and adults suffering from substance abuse. Two days later, he was re-arrested after walking up to the second floor of the Butte Prerelease Center in Uptown and complaining of a snake crawling on him. ![]() Instead, he’s being arrested, not for meth but to protect him and the residents in his building. O’Brien assures the man he’s not taking him to St. “No, I just want to sleep, and I don’t want to get attacked,” says the man and begins to cry. You don’t have any dope on you, do you?” inquires O’Brien. However, the hallucinating man and the two officers are the only people at the crossing. He calls him Watermelon and talks to him in O’Brien’s body-cam video. “I’m flipping tired,” he says, claiming his lack of sleep the past two days is due to harassment from a man who lives in his apartment building. They can do all sorts of crazy (expletive). “I don’t know what the (expletive) technology these people have, all right, but, like, they can disable my phone. 10, the man seen in body-cam video rails against the National Security Agency and screams desperate cries over a snake wrapping itself around his legs and shoulders - and visible only to him. When he’s sober, O’Brien says, he’s a “pretty good kid,” easy to talk to and always honest.īut in the early-morning hours of Aug. He had dealt with the Butte man on prior occasions. O’Brien would later confirm the man’s “hallucinations” stemmed from methamphetamine use. Officers Rich O’Brien and Jim Duddy responded to the railroad crossing on Kaw Avenue and found the man wearing a hoodie with the hood pulled over his head and a look of terror on his face. The call to police dispatch in Uptown Butte came in around 3 a.m. The 25-year-old man stood on the railroad tracks in the pitch dark of an August night, begging police officers to rescue him from an attacking snake.
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