(Stillwater, Okla.) — A Cushing man has been jailed on charges of driving an SUV through a door at a Ripley convenience store that was burglarized on April 30, as well as possessing methamphetamine and shoplifting on Sept. 20, in Stillwater.
Jackson Logan Cooper, 21, was arraigned Friday from the Payne County Jail where he was being held on $25,000 total bail pending an Oct. 6 court appearance on his latest charges.
Five months ago, Cooper had pleaded guilty to possessing methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia in Stillwater on Feb. 5. Cooper was released on a personal recognizance bond on April 25 pending his sentencing on Nov. 14.
Only five days after he was freed from jail on those drug charges, Cooper — along with an unknown person — allegedly broke into the Maverick Mini Mart in Ripley on April 30 by driving an SUV through the front door, court records show.
Cooper was identified as one of the store’s burglars on Sept. 11 after his fingerprints were discovered inside a chips bag by the state crime bureau, Payne County Sheriff’s Investigator George Disel alleged in an affidavit filed last week.
On April 30 at about 1:25 a.m., the Maverick Mini Mart in Ripley had been burglarized “when someone backed a mid-90s Tahoe vehicle into the door causing it to tear open,” the affidavit said.
“Two intruders then entered the closed business through the damaged door and went to an ATM machine inside the building.
“One of the intruders then grabbed two bags of baconets chips from a display counter before both intruders exited the building,” — then traveling north in the SUV and crossing the Cimarron River Bridge, the affidavit said.
The same day, Stillwater police located the suspects’ SUV abandoned and running at Walnut and 19th Street south of Stillwater, the affidavit said. The next morning, the SUV was reported as having been stolen the previous night from Okie Motors in Stillwater, the affidavit said.
On May 1, the sheriff’s investigator learned that two bags of chips had been stolen by the intruders, a theft that was visible on the business’s security camera film, the affidavit said.
“I went to Okie Motors and found two bags of baconets chips inside the vehicle in the front right floorboard. One bag was opened and some of the contents missing and one was unopened,” the investigator wrote in his affidavit.
The investigator obtained two partial fingerprints from the inside of the opened lip of the bag and a partial print on the outside of the opened bag, the affidavit said.
On June 5, the fingerprints were sent to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigator for a search through the automated fingerprint identification system, the affidavit said.
“On Sept. 11, 2014, I received the OSBI criminalistics examination report for these prints. The results are that the two prints from the inside of the bag are the prints belonging to Jackson Logan Cooper, the defendant,” Investigator Disel wrote in his affidavit.
If convicted of second-degree burglary of the Ripley convenience store, Cooper could be imprisoned for two to seven years.
If convicted of his additional charges of possessing methamphetamine and shoplifting in Stillwater on Sept. 20, Cooper could be incarcerated for 10 years.
Cooper’s earlier charges of possessing methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia on Feb. 5 in Stillwater, to which he pleaded guilty on April 25, carry a maximum penalty of 11 years’ incarceration.
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