Parolee nabbed with weapons, drugs after calls of suspicious activity hit parole office

Composite image with background stock image of police lights and overlay of agent badge RDaniel12, TheaDesign/iStock/Getty Images Plus, St. George News

ST. GEORGE — A LaVerkin man with a criminal history dating back more than two decades was arrested after officers said his GPS ankle monitor stood idle on a charger and calls were received by parole agents that drug activity was taking place at his home.

Jeremy David Thompson, 42, of LaVerkin, booking photo taken in Washington County, Utah, Aug. 3, 2020 | Photo courtesy of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, St. George News

On Aug. 3, Adult Probation and Parole agents responded to a residence in LaVerkin to carry out a home compliance check on 42-year-old Jeremy Thompson, who was on probation on a shoplifting case filed last year and living at a home he shared with his terminally ill mother.

According to the probable cause statement filed in support of the arrest, the parole agents had received several calls regarding Thompson’s activities, which included traffic in and out of the home reportedly occurring “at all hours of the day and night,” as well as allegations of continued drug use.

On July 29, agents received a call from a person stating Thompson was hiding his illicit substances in his mother’s room “because he knew agents would not search her room,” the officer noted in the report.

Thompson was on a GPS ankle monitor after he was involved in a prior incident in Salt Lake City. When agents checked the monitor’s recent activity, they discovered that the device had not moved from the residence, nor had it left the charger within the previous two days, leaving agents to suspect that Thompson had either slipped his monitor off or found some other way to manipulate the device to prevent agents from accurately tracking his whereabouts.

Agents entered the home and spoke with Thompson, who told officers they would not find anything “other than maybe some paraphernalia,” the agent noted in the statement.

Agents recovered a shotgun in the attic as well as a crossbow in a shed, both of which Thompson also had easy access to. During a search of his person, they found a small plastic baggie full of a white crystal-like substance consistent with methamphetamine, as well as a 4-inch knife. Given his felony convictions and being on parole, he is prohibited from having weapons of any kind.

Thompson then told officers he had been diagnosed with MRSA and that he was having symptoms of COVID-19, adding that his nephew had just tested positive for the illness. As such, Thompson was transported to Dixie Regional Medical Center, where he tested negative and was medically cleared before being booked in jail in Washington County.

2007 file photo of Utah State Prison, Draper, Utah, June 2007 | Public domain photo, St. George News

Adult Probation and Parole then submitted the following charges to the Washington County Attorney’s Office for review: second-degree felony possession of dangerous weapon by a restricted person for the shotgun, as well as two third-degree felony counts of the same charge for the knife and crossbow. He also faces possession of a controlled substance, also a felony, as well as misdemeanor possession of paraphernalia.

Thompson has a criminal history that goes back as early as 1998. In 2016, he reportedly stole a debit card and checks from an individual and then used the card to make nearly $500 in purchases and forged a check for $2,600 that he admittedly deposited into his account. He was arrested and charged with felony forgery and theft by deception and was sentenced to the Utah State Prison.

He was paroled in 2019 but was arrested and placed on probation for an incident reported in July of that year for a retail theft at the Hurricane Walmart, where video showed a man had changed pricing labels on two packages and then gone through self-checkout to pay for the items, one of which was a tool kit that cost $100. When the suspect scanned the item at the checkout, however, it rang up as a small toy.

Officers ran a check on the license plate number obtained by store security, and when they arrived at the residence listed on the registration, the report states they immediately recognized a man leaving an outside shed as Thompson. He did not admit to the theft but told police he knew the price on the tools should have been more than what it rang up as but, the reported stated, he said “that was the store’s problem and did not have anything to do with him.”

Due to the suspect’s extensive criminal history, the retail theft charge was enhanced to a class A misdemeanor. The jail term of 365 days was suspended when he was sentenced the following month, and Thompson, who was still on parole from prison, was placed on probation. As a result of the new case, which was a violation of his parole, he was returned to Utah State Prison and released several months later.

Thompson remains in custody on the current case and is being held on $23,770 bail. He made an initial appearance on Thursday and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Aug. 13.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

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