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Soldier Arraigned In Theft Of Armored Vehicle

Richmond City Sheriff's Office Photo

An Army National Guard officer accused of stealing an armored personnel carrier from a Virginia base and leading police on a more than 60-mile chase was driving under the influence of drugs, police said Wednesday.

Joshua Philip Yabut, 29, of Richmond, was charged with eluding police and unauthorized use of a vehicle, the Virginia National Guard said in a news release.

The vehicle, which drives on tracks like a tank, was stolen Tuesday evening from Fort Pickett in Blackstone. Police chased it for about two hours at speeds as high as 40 mph before the driver stopped and surrendered near Richmond City Hall, Virginia State Police said.

The Guard said the personnel carrier was driven away during routine training at Fort Pickett and has been returned to the base. The vehicle wasn't equipped with any weapons, but Yabut had his personal weapon with him without any ammunition, the Guard said.

Police said an investigation is ongoing and declined to comment on a motive for stealing the vehicle, but said he was under the influence of drugs.

In a Wednesday evening phone call from Virginia's Central State Hospital, Yabut told The Associated Press he was authorized to take the vehicle on a pre-planned route as part of a training exercise to gauge the police response. Yabut said his brigade commander, who he declined to name, told him to take the vehicle. The psychiatric hospital is in Petersburg, Virginia, and its patients include people receiving court-ordered mental health evaluations and treatment.

Yabut also denied authorities' claim that he was under the influence of drugs during the incident. "That's a big 'NO' with capital letters," he said.

No bond was set when he appeared earlier Wednesday in Richmond General District Court via video link from the city jail. Yabut's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Thomas Wieworka, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The Guard said Yabut is a first lieutenant assigned as company commander of the 276th Engineer Battalion and has more than 11 years of service. He deployed to Afghanistan from 2008 to 2009 with the Illinois National Guard.

"We are extremely grateful that there were no injuries as a result of this incident, and we appreciate the great work of the Virginia State Police, Richmond Police Department and other law enforcement and first responders who safely brought this situation to a close," Maj. Gen. Timothy P. Williams, the adjutant general of Virginia, said in a statement.

Williams said the Guard has started an internal investigation and "will determine appropriate actions once the investigation is complete."

Michael Finneran, a spokesman for the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, said Yabut worked there in a civilian job in the office of the chief information officer from 2014 to 2017.

Yabut also previously worked as an unpaid software developer for ZenCash, the cryptocurrency company said in a statement Wednesday.

Yabut was a developer in the project's early stages, and he "intentionally made public a method" of attacking the system, which was a "vulnerability" that he coded in, according to the statement.

The company said an attack caused the loss of funds from ZenCash supporters. The lost funds were restored, the vulnerability was addressed and the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center was contacted about Yabut's actions, the company said. A spokeswoman for the Richmond division of the FBI did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Yabut seemed to foreshadow the theft and chase in Twitter posts Tuesday. Hours before the vehicle drove off the base, an account confirmed by the Guard as Yabut's tweeted a Wikipedia entry about the M113 armored personnel carrier, which is similar to the M577 vehicle police chased, and a screenshot of a map around the area where the vehicle eventually stopped.

Minutes after police began their pursuit shortly before 8 p.m., Yabut posted a photo and video of himself in what appears to be the stolen vehicle.

He wrote a series of odd tweets Tuesday, including: "where is this damn water buffalo" ''all i wanna do is get an anime wife" and "wow I think I just discovered a large illegal spy operation in the us government."

Attempts to reach Yabut's family members were not successful.

In February, Yabut filed papers to run as an independent candidate for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Tim Kaine.

Yabut is due back in court on July 11.

The Associated Press is one of the largest and most trusted sources of independent newsgathering, supplying a steady stream of news to its members, international subscribers and commercial customers. AP is neither privately owned nor government-funded; instead, it's a not-for-profit news cooperative owned by its American newspaper and broadcast members.
Mallory Noe-Payne is a Radio IQ reporter based in Richmond.