A 38-year-old Van Buren man who had avoided incarceration for almost a year was sentenced to eight years in prison with an additional twelve years suspended this week in Sebastian County Circuit Court proceedings on Wednesday.
According documentation from the courts, Clayton Nicholas Cole, whose address with the court is listed in the 800 block of South 40th Street in Van Buren, wascharged with possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and possession of drug paraphernalia from a 2022 case. . At that time a 2021 charge of theft of property under $5,000 was also leveled against Cole.
On Wednesday, Cole was charged as a habitual offender in the case. When he was arrested in 2022 he was released on a total of $4,000 in legally sufficient bonds. He failed to appear for his preliminary court proceedings on July 25 of the same year. He also faced contempt for failure to pay fines on both felonies and misdemeanors after his latest arrest.
On Wednesday he appeared with Fort Smith attorney Marvin Honeycutt and the state announced that they would not file the failure to appear charges but did add an habitual tag on Cole. Cole pled guilty, received his sentence and was given jail time credit.
As part of the plea deal he has to submit a DNA sample to the court and his driver's license will be suspended for 6 months when he gets out of prison.
The habitual offender tag came from previous arrest dating back to 2015 in Sebastian County. At that time Cole was arrested as a fugitive from justice out of state and for failure to appear on a separate felony.
As of Friday morning cole remained in the Sebastian County Detention Center awaiting his transfer to the ADC.
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