A Belleview man with an expired, out-of-state license tag who stopped to ask a police officer a question found himself behind bars a week later.
A Belleview Police officer said that 65-year-old Lance Joseph Wheeler approached him on Aug. 18 to ask a question about a traffic stop. The officer recognized Wheeler from a previous incident and saw that he had an Idaho license tag on his vehicle as he drove away.
The officer remembered that Wheeler’s tag had been expired when he stopped him, so he checked records and discovered that a Belleview Police sergeant had written him a citation on Sept. 15, 2018 for driving the same vehicle with an expired tag for more than six months.
The officer also checked with the Marion County Clerk of Courts and saw that Wheeler had a conviction on Sept. 21, 2018 for driving with an expired tag for more than six months. But by that time Wheeler had left the area, the report says.
On Sunday, the officer spotted Wheeler driving his white four-door Chevrolet south on U.S. Hwy. 301. The officer noticed that Wheeler wasn’t wearing his seatbelt, so he conducted a traffic stop and confirmed the license tag on Wheeler’s vehicle had expired in February 2016, the report says.
Wheeler was then taken into custody and transported to the Marion County Jail, where he was charged with driving with an expired tag of more than six months. He was released Monday night on a deferred status and is due in court Dec. 5 at 8 a.m.