By Michael R. Moser / mmoser@crossville-chronicle.com
April 02, 2009 04:15 pm
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The defendant who decided he didn't want to hang around long enough to learn what a jury had decided on his methamphetamine making related case is back behind bars today after being taken into custody by Putnam County authorities Wednesday afternoon.
Gary Thomas (Bulldog) Reed, 35, Moonlight Trail, DeRossett, was returned to the Cumberland County Justice Department where he is being held without bond pending his sentence hearing scheduled for April 17.
Because Reed was free on bond when a jury was seated to hear evidence in an initiation of the process to manufacture methamphetamine charge, he cannot be charged with escape.
He is, however, facing a felony charge of failure to appear in addition to the felony meth-related charge.
"We got him back," Sheriff Butch Burgess said Thursday. "We knew it would just be a matter of time and he would surface." Local authorities received information that Reed was in the Putnam County community of Algood and that information was passed on to law enforcement in that county.
Reed was traveling in a vehicle when police stopped that vehicle and took him into custody without incident.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Marshal's Service, Cumberland, Putnam and White county sheriff's departments and Crossville Police Department were involved in the search since Reed walked out of the courtroom here on March 19 and never returned.
During the one-day trial, evidence showed that sheriff's investigators had kept a Lynch Rd. residence under surveillance after Reed rented the property under the guise of storing his tree-trimming equipment there.
On June 25, 2007, deputies raided the property and found Reed in a bedroom of a mobile home where components commonly associated with the clandestine manufacture of meth were discovered.
In addition to finding Reed guilty, the jury also assessed a $100,000 fine.
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Photos
Gary Reed