A 44-year-old Lavaca man who started his felony criminal career at the age of 17 in 1996 will be spending the better part of the remainder of the 2020s in prison after a plea deal in Sebastian County Circuit Court on Friday.
According to information released by the courts, Paul Adam Arsola Jr. has been in court a total of 19 times facing felony charges since his first arrest.
Arsola. whose most current address with the court was in the 1300 block of Kim CIIcle in Lavaca, was sentenced to seven years in prison with an additional 13-years suspended after he was handed amended charges and escaped an habitual offender tag in the court session.
Arsola's first reccorded felony arrest in Sebastian County was for breaking and entering in October of 1996 and he was sentenced to 12 months in prison for that initial crime. Apparently, he learned little or no lesson from that incarceration as he has bounced back and forth to prison a number of times on a number of very diverse charges over the years.
Starting with that 1996 crime and including the latest discretions for which he was sentenced on Friday, Arsola has been in front of a Sebastian County Circuit Court nineteen times over the years. From burglary to battery, from criminal mischief to being a felon in possession of a firearm, Arsola has done it all - - and paid the time for it - - in an almost 30-year criminal career.
On Friday he avoided what could have potentially been more time in prison after all the the charges against him were amended to a single charge of Possession of Methamphetamine. . The state did not pursue the habitual offender tag and Arsolar pled guilty and received his imposed sentence.
According to information from the Sebastian County detention center he was arrested July 30th, 2022 and has been in the SCADC since that time on several holds.
He was in jail from that time on felony robbery furnishing a prohibited article to a correction facility, theft of property charges and a misdemeanor failure to appear. He also avoided a petition to revoke during the court session on Friday.
