Van Buren woman with extensive criminal background catches twenty-year sentence in plea deal

A 31-year-old Van Buren woman drew decades of imposed sentences in Sebastian County Circuit Court on Thursday but had all her time set to serve consecutively to run with terms she was already facing because of a prior probation revocation.

Ashley Irene Hay (aka Ashley Cook) was given 20 years on Y Felonies and five years in B felonies, but will actually be on the hook for just twenty years with the sentences set to run concurrently with the remainder of an existing ten-year sentence from 2017 on various drug charges. A parole violation after her June arrest reinstated her original; sentence.

Hay was arrested June 1 for possession of paraphernalia and theft by receiving while out on a total of $27,500 in legally sufficient and signature bonds for the charges she was convicted of Wednesday.

That arrest occurred on December 29 of last year and she spent three months in the Sebastian County Adult Detention Center before her release on bond three months later. She has been in jail since her arrest in June.

At that time, Hay was charged with Possession of Firearms By Certain Persons - Prior Violence-Felon in Possession, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia - Ingest Meth/Cocaine, Possession of [Schedule I/II Controlled Substance] with the Purpose to Deliver, Simultaneous Possession of Drugs and Firearms ,Trafficking [Schedule I/II Controlled Substance], Driving on Suspended or Revoked DL - DWI, Refusal To Submit To Arrest Misdemeanor, *and Obstructing Governmental Operations.

Since 2010, Hay has been arrested on over a dozen different felony counts, including convictions for Possession of a Controlled Substance, Theft of Property, Delivery of Meth and Cocaine, and other crimes. Since 2010 she has been sentenced to over sixty-two years of sentences that have been allowed to run concurrently.

From November 2017 until her release on probation in 2020 on previous charges, Hay racked up almost 60 major disciplinary violations inside the ADC.