EVERETT — A Renton man must serve more than 12 years in prison for commandeering a taxi cab to flee gunfire, leading police on a chaotic chase from Lynnwood to Northgate, at times going the wrong way on I-5.
Harry Nettleton IV, 39, was one of two passengers in the yellow Crown Victoria on the afternoon of Jan. 16, when he mentioned they were being tailed by another car near a Dairy Queen on Highway 99, according to court papers. The cabbie didn’t take his passenger seriously at first, then realized it appeared to be true. The cab darted into a parking lot. Someone opened fire, leaving the cab “riddled with bullet holes,” according to the defense. No one was shot.
The cabbie drove away and then stopped outside an apartment complex. Prosecutors alleged that’s when Nettleton hijacked the cab, holding his hand in his pocket like he had a gun.
“The defense contends that this is not what occurred,” wrote defense attorney Elbert Aull.
The second passenger claimed Nettleton and the driver, both in a panic, “agreed that Mr. Nettleton would drive away and leave the cab in Seattle,” according to the defense.
A jury acquitted Nettleton on two counts: second-degree robbery and theft of a motor vehicle. He was convicted of attempting to elude a pursuing police officer, two counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm.
Police caught up to Nettleton around the King County line, chasing him at speeds of 80 to 110 mph.
It was “one of the most egregious eluding offenses one can imagine without rising to the level of vehicular assault or vehicular homicide,” deputy prosecutor Tyler Scott wrote in a memorandum.
The car exited the freeway, ignored red lights, and nearly struck a child crossing the street, according to charging papers.
After he returned to the freeway, Nettleton came to a sudden halt at the closed on-ramp to express lanes. Police swarmed the cab and arrested Nettleton at gunpoint. Drugs were recovered from his pockets and a gun was discovered on the passenger floorboard of the taxi.
The armed assailants from the start of the incident were never publicly identified in charging papers.
“Their identities are perhaps the worst-kept secret in Everett’s drug community,” Aull wrote.
A sentencing hearing was delayed at least four times after the jury returned the verdicts. In the meantime, Nettleton was given a new public defender.
Legal arguments continued for an hour Monday, at which point Nettleton told Judge Edirin Okoloko he didn’t want his family to have to keep coming back to court. He said he was ready to proceed with sentencing.
Scott argued for a prison term above the state standard, citing the seriousness of the chase. Defense attorney Donald Wackerman asked for a sentence below the standard range, in part because Nettleton was the victim of an attempt on his life that day, evidently by drug dealers who wanted him dead. Nettleton’s partner Julie Pellegrini made basically the same point in a letter to the judge.
“So why is the prosecution asking for 19 years for Harry, when he’s not even the person who committed the major crimes that day?” she wrote. “Harry’s crimes were being a drug addict and running for his life and failing to pull over for the police who took the stand in trial and stated they (had been authorized to use lethal force).”
Judge Okoloko handed down a sentence within state guidelines.
Nettleton’s rap sheet began as a child. He’d been convicted of felonies at ages 12, 13, again at 13 and 17. Court papers show the defendant grew up in a home surrounded by drug-addicted adults. The system had failed him in his youth, Pellegrini wrote, and he’d never been given a chance to overcome his demons in a healthy way. Nettleton has spent much of his adult life in prison for burglary, robbery, assault and theft. Twice before he’d been found guilty of attempting to elude police.
“I may not have made all the right decisions,” Nettleton said in court Monday. “But at the time I was just running for my life.”
Caleb Hutton: 425-339-3454; chutton@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snocaleb.
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