Strunk gets five-year prison sentence for two-state police chase

A Lexington man, who led police on a two-state vehicle pursuit in late 2022, has been sentenced to five years in prison as the result of a plea agreement.

On Nov. 14, 2023, Bennie Strunk, 46, pleaded guilty to first-degree wanton endangerment (police officer), first-degree fleeing or evading police (motor vehicle), and operating a motor vehicle while under the influences of intoxicants as part of a plea deal, according to a Williamsburg Police Department release and court officials.

As part of the plea agreement, a first-degree possession of a controlled substance (fentanyl) charge was dismissed, according to the Whitley Circuit Court Clerk’s Office.

Strunk also pleaded guilty to a persistent felony offender charge, which was issued later in 2023 and eventually merged with this case, according to the clerk’s office.

On Jan. 10, Whitley Circuit Judge Dan Ballou sentenced Strunk to a five-year prison sentence for wanton endangerment, a five-year prison sentence for fleeing or evading police, and a 30-day jail sentence on the DUI charged, but ordered all of those sentences to be served concurrently, or at the same time, for a total sentence of five years in prison, according to the release and the clerk’s office.

The persistent felony offender charge didn’t carry its own sentence, but enhanced the penalties on some of the other charges, according to the clerk’s office.

The charges all stem from a vehicle pursuit that happened about 10:28 p.m. on Dec. 4, 2022, when Williamsburg Police Officer Dorman Patrick Jr. observed a black 2004 vehicle allegedly fail to stop at a stop sign and not use a turn signal while turning off Happy Hollow Road onto KY 92W, according to an arrest citation.

When Patrick attempted to get the vehicle to stop, it continued to travel north on I-75 from Exit 11 allegedly driving from lane to lane jerking back and forth, the citation stated.

Patrick and Officer Bryson Lawson discontinued the pursuit at that point but kept observing the vehicle which turned near Exit 15 to go south of I-75 towards Jellico.

The Jellico Police Department and the Campbell County (Tennessee) Sheriff’s Department were alerted and made contact with the vehicle, which eventually turned around going back into Kentucky after fleeing from Tennessee law enforcement, Patrick wrote on a citation.

Patrick and Lawson were waiting on the vehicle as it approached Exit 11.

“The offender again was jerking his steering wheel back and forth and was driving at a high rate of speed. The offender swerved his vehicle in the direction of Deputy (David) Rowe nearly hitting him in the side at the bottom of the northbound onramp,” Patrick wrote on another arrest citation.

Police pursued the vehicle for about two miles before they got the vehicle boxed in and stopped.

“The offender had to be dragged out of the truck and forced to the ground where he tensed up and put his hands directly in front of him, would not move, and would not comply with officers commands,” Patrick wrote.

The driver allegedly admitted to using methamphetamine and other drugs, including heroin and fentanyl, and appeared to have a white substance/residue inside his mouth and on his tongue, Patrick wrote in a third arrest citation.