OWI charges filed in Minburn bike-trail chase case

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Third-offense OWI charges were filed last week against Jason Dale Charlet, 46, in connection with a hot pursuit along the Raccoon Valley Bike Trail last September that ended in a motorcycle crash in Minburn.

Third-offense OWI charges were filed last week against Jason Dale Charlet, 46, in connection with a hot pursuit along the Raccoon Valley Bike Trail last fall that ended in a motorcycle crash in Minburn.

The incident began Sept. 26 about 6:40 p.m., when a caller reported seeing “a male driving a blue dirt bike and a female driving a red four-wheeler in Minburn,” Dallas County Chief Deputy Sheriff Adam Infante said at the time.

A deputy sheriff responded, located the vehicles and “began a pursuit of the dirt bike and the four-wheeler on the bike trail on the north side of Minburn. The four-wheeler split off from the dirt bike, and the deputy continued to pursue the dirt bike,” Infante said.

The vehicles soon left the city streets, and the chase continued northward on the Raccoon River Valley Trail near the Heartland Cooperative, Infante said. The 16-minute pursuit, at times reaching speeds of 65 mph, “went on and off the bike trail and on and off of gravel roads north of Minburn before the driver eventually circled back and went south on the bike trail back toward Minburn,” he said.

The Dallas County Sheriff’s office was assisted in the pursuit by the Boone County Sheriff’s office, the Perry Police Department and Minburn Fire and Rescue.

Infante said the chase came to an end in Minburn when “a Dallas County Deputy was in the Heartland Co-op, and the driver of the dirt bike ran into the rear passenger side of the Dallas County Deputy’s patrol vehicle.”

Charlet sustained injuries in the collision and was transported by the Dallas County EMS to the Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines. Lab tests later revealed his blood alcohol content exceeded the limit allowed for the legal operation of a motor vehicle, and charges were filed.

Charlet challenged some parts of the law enforcement account of the incident, sharing his opinions in a Nov. 19 letter to ThePerryNews.com.

“There was no need for this,” Charlet said. “They knew me and where I lived. Nothing we did warranted a pursuit of this caliber when going to my house would have been the way to go.”

Jason Richard Spence

Charlet’s claims were in turn disputed in a letter to the editor of ThePerryNews.com by a Minburn man, Jason Richard Spence, who has experience attempting to elude Dallas County law enforcement.

Court records indicate Charlet was extradicted to Nebraska in November on an arrest warrant. He was previously convicted in Dallas County District Court of second-offense OWI in July 2014 and has prior convictions for fifth-degree theft in Crawford County in 2016 and Greene County in 2017. He was also convicted in Dallas County of second-degree theft and driving while barred in 2017.

1 COMMENT

  1. You don’t need to talk to a cop without a lawyer, but you certainly must not lie to them. In the state of Iowa and in most cases not involving motor vehicles, you are not required to provide a valid ID to a policeman although that may be advised. You do not need to consent to a search without a warrant or probable cause. You must, however, obey any and all lawful orders from a cop, and that certainly includes stopping when he wants you to stop. I have little understanding for those who run or try to elude, and I’m an anarchist. There may very well come a time when authority must be challenged and when good citizens must stand up to power, but not when you’re driving loaded.

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