Wells Superior Court
Criminal Cases
Lorenzo A. Perry, 31, Bluffton, pleaded guilty to driving while suspended, a Class A misdemeanor.
Sentenced to a year in the Wells County Jail, with all but two days suspended — credited as time served, and placed on probation for 363 days. Probation will terminate upon his obtaining a valid driver’s license. Ordered to pay court costs and probation fees.
While patrolling Main Street Sept. 20 a Bluffton Police officer spotted a vehicle in which he knew from a previous encounter was registered to an owner who had a suspended driver’s license. The vehicle was at one of the gas pump aisles at the Short Stop.
The officer waited until the vehicle left the convenience store and pulled in behind it, eventually pulling it over at the intersection of Main and Monroe streets.
It turned out that the driver was not the registered owner, but was Perry instead. However, he admitted to the officer that his driver’s license was also suspended. He had a prior conviction July 15 in Hamilton County Superior Court for driving while suspended.
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Preliminary plea of not guilty entered for Shawn Michael Collis, 29, Bluffton, charged with theft with a prior conviction for the same or a similar offense, a Level 6 felony; public intoxication, a Class B misdemeanor; and criminal mischief, a Class B misdemeanor. Bond set at a total of $7,500. Jeffrey Stineburg appointed public defender.
At 12:49 a.m. Sept. 20, Bluffton police responded to a residence on McConnell Drive on a report that a man — later identified as Collis — was destroying property inside the residence. Collis was reportedly located by officers hiding in a closet in his bedroom and ordered out. Collis had allegedly damaged a television along with other property inside the residence.
Then at 9:47 p.m. the same day, Bluffton police responded to the Industrial Tent at the Bluffton Free Street Fair Sept. 20 on a report that Collis was behaving belligerently in the tent and harassing a man whom he knew trying to get the man to give him money.
When officers arrived, they reportedly observed that Collis was being belligerent and called the man, who was trying to avoid him, obscene names.
Collis was then placed under arrest. As they did so, a third man approached the officers and said he had been following Collis after Collis took $20 from him. The third man explained that he had been working on his vehicle when he was approached by Collis. As the third man reached into his pocket to pull out a pair of callipers, a $20 bill also fell out of his pocket. Reportedly Collis scooped up the bill and ran away.
Collis allegedly admitted to an officer that he had taken the money to go to a liquor store and buy “shots” for himself and a friend.
Allegedly Collis’ blood alcohol concentration equivalency was .17 percent, or more than twice Indiana’s legal limit for intoxication of .08 percent.
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Au Bi Dah, 31, Fort Wayne, pleaded guilty to driving while suspended with a prior conviction for the same offense, a Class A misdemeanor.
Sentenced to a year in the Wells County Jail, with all but 12 days suspended — credited as time served, and placed on probation for 353 days. Ordered to pay court costs and probation fees.
On Aug. 31, 2021, Bluffton police responded to a residence on Morgan Street on a report of a suspicious pickup truck driving around the complainant’s house. The people in the vehicle were honking the horn. At one point, the pickup truck backed into a parked 2001 Chrysler.
Shortly afterward, a Bluffton police officer was flagged down by a woman driving a pickup truck with a male passenger. The woman was seeking directions to a residence close to where the accident had occurred. The officer assumed the truck was the suspect vehicle and asked that the driver of the truck to follow him. The driver, later identified as Sha Lay Ha, 32, Fort Wayne, reportedly did not follow through on that request
A man at the scene of the crash said that the couple in the pickup truck had been at a residence to look at a sofa that the man’s father had for sale. They then left quickly. The man showed the officer a Facebook page the couple had used to contact the man with the sofa for sale. The officer recognized the page as a bogus page.
The officer had recorded the number on the license plate of the pickup truck. A check of the number showed the plate was registered to Ha. The officer contacted Ha and set up an interview. During the interview, Ha reportedly told the officer — through an interpreter — that the reason she and her husband, Dah, left the scene so quickly was because Ha’s son had gotten sick that their residence in Fort Wayne and she was trying to get back home to be with him. She reportedly told the officer that she texted the owner of the sofa about the emergency and that she would be back the next day. However there reportedly was no evidence of such a text on either Ha’s phone nor on the phone of the sofa owner. She reportedly denied having been in a traffic accident.
Witnesses to the accident, however, countered Ha’s sworn statement stating that Dah, not Ha, had been driving the pickup truck at the time of the accident. A relative of Dah’s — apparently looking for information about the investigation — also allegedly admitted to the officer that Dah, not Ha, had been the driver of the pickup truck. Dah then later reportedly contacted the officer and denied being the driver and told the officer “he would let the courts decide.”
Dah has a suspended driver’s license.
On Aug. 22, Ha was entered into a pre-trial diversion contract on one count of false informing, a Class B misdemeanor.
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Dennis D. Rogan, 32, Fort Wayne, pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of a property damage accident with a prior conviction for the same offense, a Level 6 felony, and operating a vehicle with an alcohol concentration equivalency of .15 percent or more, a Class A misdemeanor.
Sentenced to 545 days in prison, with all but 90 days suspended on the felony charge and one year, with all but 90 days suspended, in the Wells County Jail on the misdemeanor charge. The sentences are to be served concurrently. He was credited for 46 days spent in confinement awaiting disposition of his case.
Ordered to submit a DNA sample, pay court costs and probation fees.
As part of a plea agreement, charges of operating a vehicle while intoxicated endangering a person, a Class A misdemeanor; operating a vehicle with a Schedule I or II controlled substance in his body, a Class C misdemeanor; and operating a vehicle without financial responsibility, a Class A infraction, were all dismissed.
On Nov. 23, 2021, sheriff’s deputies and other law enforcement officers responded to a report of a single vehicle crash on Ind. 1 south of 400N. The vehicle, a 2006 Pontiac G6, flipped onto its top at the entrance to a woods and the driver, later identified as Rogan, crawled out of the upsidedown car and fled into the woods. Rogan was later found by law enforcement about 40 yards from the crash in the woods.
Rogan reportedly told the investigating deputy that he was driving south on Ind. 1 between 60 and 70 mph passing vehicles when he tried passing one but swerved to avoid a string of oncoming vehicles, lost control of the vehicle he was driving, ran over a mailbox and the Pontiac rolled onto its top.
The deputy noted in his report to the court that Rogan smelled of alcohol but did not give an adequate breath sample. A blood test conducted at Bluffton Regional Medical Center reportedly showed his alcohol concentration equivalency to be .151 percent.
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One day jury trial set for 8:30 a.m. Jan. 31, 2023, for Bobby J. Speece, 42, rural Montpelier, charged with two counts of failure to appear in court, both Level 6 felonies.
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Brian W. Coblentz, 47, Geneva, pleaded guilty to theft with a prior conviction for the same or a similar offense, a Level 6 felony.
Sentenced to two years in the Wells County Jail, with all but 42 days suspended — credited as time served, and placed on probation for 688 days.
Ordered to pay $741.20 in restitution to Walmart Stores East, submit a DNA sample, and pay court costs and probation fees.
As part of a plea agreement, two counts of theft, both Level 6 felonies, were dismissed.
Coblentz was charged with assisting Kimberly Limbert, 34, Geneva, in removing universal price code symbols from less expensive items at the Bluffton Walmart Supercenter and then applying those tags to more expensive items in order to not have to pay so much when using the scanners in the self-scan aisle.
Among the items reportedly ticket switched included a bottle of Fabreeze fabric softener which normally costs $12.74 but for which Limbert and Coblentz allegedly paid 25 cents. They also allegedly paid 25 cents for a hooded sweatshirt that cost $19.67.
Coblentz was reported to be present with Limbert on three of the six different occasions in which Limbert had allegedly scanned ticket-switched items. During those three occasions, the two allegedly ticket switched 21 items.
Limbert was sentenced March 8 to a year in the Wells County Jail on one count of theft, a Class A misdemeanor. All but 10 days of her sentence was suspended.
However she violated her probation and a warrant has since been issued for her arrest.
