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• Large Crowd Attends Annual Sawmill Day Festival And Car Show
• Mostly Sunny, About 86 Sunday
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Molino, Century On The Tonight Show With Jay Leno Thanks To “Genius” Criminal

Both Century and Molino were mentioned on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno Thursday night, thanks to a “genius” criminal.

During Leno’s “Police Blotter” segment in which funny newspaper stories about criminals are featured, Leno presented a September 2004 newspaper story about a police chase that ended in Nokomis.

“Another genius…tree cutter faces several charges after leading deputies on chase…a Pensacola tree cutter led deputies…10 mile chase from Molino to near Century…told deputies he was trying to smoke all $500 worth of his crack cocaine before he got pulled over,” Leno said, paraphrasing the article.

“That’s very clever, you want to smoke as much crack…” Leno joked.

(The video is at the bottom of this page. After an advertisement, fast foward to about 2:23 to see the Molino/Century story.)

NorthEscambia.com obtained the September 29, 2004, Escambia County Sheriff’s Office incident report, and here’s what the report states happened:

John Wesley Montgomery, then 32, was arrested following a chase. After receiving a call on reckless vehicle, Deputy Michael Mandell located Montgomery northbound on Highway 97 and noticed that he would lean across his vehicle and disappear below the dash. The deputy activated his blue lights, but Montgomery would not stop and continued north on Highway 97.

“Montgomery’s vehicle began swerving and he made agitated arm waving motions and even appeared to be smoking a crack pipe,” the deputy wrote in his report.

Several other deputies joined in the chase and the Sheriff’s Office helicopter was called. Montgomery eventually crashed through a fence in the 7700 block of Nokomis Road and fled on foot. Montgomery — who was employed as a tree cutter — was arrested as he tried to climb a tree in a field.

Montgomery told deputies, according to the Sheriff’s Office report, that “he was driving crazy in the north area when he noticed some white guy in  truck behind him. He became paranoid because he thought the vehicle was following him.”

“He stated at the time he tried to smoke the rest of his cocaine,” the report states.

In 2008, Montgomery was found guilty of fleeing and eluding law enforcement and aggravated assault on an officer and sentenced as a habitual offender to a mandatory three years in state prison. He is now in federal prison on unrelated charges.

Images courtesy NBC and The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.