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A 26-year-old Little Rock woman set to go on trial Thursday for 25 felony charges related to breaking into vehicles, theft and using stolen credit cards to make purchases, instead left the Baxter County Courthouse as officials were getting ready to seat a jury for her trial.

In November of last year, Anjanette Evett Yancy was arrested on 12 counts of second-degree forgery, five counts of breaking or entering, four counts of theft of property and four counts of criminal mischief. She also faces one misdemeanor count of obstructing governmental operations.

Yancy appeared in court Thursday and spoke with her defense attorney. However, when it came time for the attorneys to begin picking a jury, Yancy could not be found. Baxter County Circuit Court Judge John Putman ordered that an arrest warrant for Yancy be issued on a charge of failure to appear.

State law requires prosecutors to offer a plea bargain to defendant prior to taking a case to trial. In this case, given that the courtroom was filled with dozens of potential jurors when Yancy allegedly fled the courthouse, prosecutors weren’t likely to offer Yancy an appealing plea deal.

It is not unusual for defendants to skip court appearances. In fact, court records indicate Yancy herself skipped an earlier court appearance. Generally, when a defendant skips a court appearance and a failure to appear warrant is issued, the defendant is not given a bond until they’re brought before the judge who issued the warrant.

Yancy’s alleged crimes

Mountain Home police were called to Baxter Regional Medical Center on Oct. 18 for two vehicle break-ins. The same day, they took a call of a third vehicle break-in at a local business.

In all three cases, the victims stated windows on their cars were broken. Someone then entered the vehicles, and in two cases, took purses. In the third case, the female victim had a wallet stolen from the vehicle.

As one of the victims was in the hospital parking lot reporting the crime, American Express called her and told her they suspected her card was being used fraudulently at Walmart in Mountain Home as the victim was speaking to police.

Video surveillance footage from the store reportedly shows two women using the card at the store.

On Nov. 7, MHPD was called to the hospital again for two more vehicles that were broken into. One victim looked in her vehicle and said she didn’t think anything was missing.

The second victim began receiving fraud alert text messages on her phone, according to the affidavit. She went to her vehicle and discovered a window had been broken and her purse was missing.

Shortly after noon the same day, an MHPD investigator watched as Yancy and another woman allegedly had difficulty using cards in one of the store’s self checkout lines, according to the affidavit.

Yancy was detained by the investigator, while the second suspect allegedly fled. When questioned, Yancy is accused of giving police a false name and date of birth, according to the affidavit.

Yancy and the unknown, alleged other offender racked up more than $7,000 in fraudulent charges, according to police.

Following her arrest, Yancy was taken to the Baxter County jail where she was held in lieu of a $75,000 bond.

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