SPARTANBURG S.C. (WSPA) – A Spartanburg man was given a combined 20 year prison sentence for a series of crimes committed in 2022.
Timothy Wayne Johnson, 40, pleaded guilty on Friday to grand larceny, malicious injury to real property and breaking into a motor vehicle. He was given a 25-year prison sentence suspended to 20 years in prison and 5 years on probation.
According to the Seventh Circuit Solicitor’s Office, Johnson was responsible for causing tens of thousands of dollars in damages on April 24, 2022.
The solicitor’s office said on April 24, 2022, deputies with the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office were called to Palmetto Grading to find a running truck parked in the bushes with no driver inside.
The truck appeared to have been used to force open the gate at Palmetto Grading and another truck and attached trailer were missing from the business.
Deputies reportedly found the stolen truck on Old Furnace Road, driving in a “reckless manner forcing other vehicles off the road.”
South Carolina Highway Patrol later determined the stolen truck, driven by Johnson, sideswiped the vehicles of Lucille Fletcher and Dorothy Elliot before continuing to drive on Asheville Highway.
Johnson then drove the stolen truck onto I-26 West and deputies from the Spartanburg
County Sheriff’s Office pursued it to mile marker 1 where other members of law
enforcement had erected devices to stop the stolen truck.
Johnson in the stolen truck abruptly swerved into the median to avoid the devices and continued driving into North Carolina, where he eventually wrecked the truck as was arrested.
