Teen pleads to vehicle theft, criminal vehicular operation in bar incident
CLARKFIELD -- Sergio Omar Trevino, 18, of Clarkfield, pleaded guilty Tuesday to two charges stemming from a Aug. 23 incident that included injuring two people, stealing a minivan, driving it into a parked car and the Filling Station Bar in Clarkfield and then leading law officers on a high-speed chase.
Trevino entered guilty pleas to a felony charge of motor vehicle theft and a gross misdemeanor for criminal vehicular operation in Tri-County District Court in Montevideo. He will be sentenced Nov. 24 by Judge Paul Nelson.
The charges were filed after Trevino was arrested in a cornfield outside of Clarkfield after a high-speed chase that exceeded 100 mph. According to the complaint, the incidents unfolded after Trevino was evicted from the Filling Station Bar for unruly behavior.
Law officers were summoned when people reported that the defendant and a man he had been arguing with in the bar were across the street, and one of the men was banging on the windows of a gas station.
The complaint states that shortly afterward, Trevino went to a Clarkfield residence and took a 2003 Dodge Caravan minivan owned by Pati Marie McCausland and parked in her driveway. McCausland told officers that she saw him take her van and that when she proceeded after the suspect, he threw something that struck her in the leg and ankle area. She required treatment at a hospital for the injuries.
Trevino drove the minivan to the Filling Station Bar and drove it into a parked car and the Filling Station building. Warren Irvine, the owner of the struck car, attempted to enter the driver's side door of the minivan, which was open, to stop Trevino. The complaint charges that Trevino backed the minivan and knocked Irvine to the ground, and dragged him on the pavement. Irvine's leg was also driven over in the process.
Trevino drove away with the minivan. A Yellow Medicine County sheriff's deputy pursued the minivan in excess of 100 mph. The van left the paved road for 252nd Avenue, a gravel roadway. At a T-intersection the officer found the minivan had gone into a cornfield and both front air bags had deployed.
The suspect was captured after a scuffle with another officer around 2:13 a.m. Trevino reported that he was suffering back pain and he was transported to the Granite Falls Hospital.
Trevino had a blood-alcohol content of 0.182 when he was administered a breath blood alcohol test shortly after being apprehended.
