Va. Beach man pleads guilty in high speed chase case

By Linda Cicoira

A Virginia Beach man pleaded guilty Monday in Northampton Circuit Court to felony eluding and misdemeanor counts of driving without a license and fleeing from an officer in connection with a spree that started on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel last May.

Five other charges against 40-year-old Thomas John Miller weren’t prosecuted via a plea agreement with Commonwealth’s Attorney Jack Thornton.

     Thornton said Miller jumped into someone else’s pickup truck while he was inside the Wawa Store near Oceania and drove off. The defendant later told authorities that he planned to go to Buffalo, N.Y.

The prosecutor said Miller didn’t have money to pay the toll at the bridge-tunnel, and told a facility worker he was going to turn around. Instead, he went through the south plaza at a high rate of speed and kept going towards the Eastern Shore.

A bridge-tunnel officer pursued Miller, but never turned on flashing lights, which is required, and the reason one of the charges was not prosecuted.

Northampton deputies spotted the Ford F250 around 3 a.m. going 90 mph on Lankford Highway near Machipongo. Miller fled through Exmore at 100 mph. Somewhere in between, the vehicle was clocked going 130 mph. Miller crashed in a ditch outside of Belle Haven near Bundick’s Well & Pump Co. He fled on foot, hid in a machinery shed for a while, and was eventually captured.

“He was not remorseful at all except that he got caught,” said Thornton. He also “was constantly making racial slurs” to one of the deputies. “Very poor decisions,” Thornton continued, saying he would elaborate more about that at sentencing.

Defense lawyer Patrick Bales said such language was not used, but did not dispute the rest of the allegations. Miller was taken back to jail. Sentencing was set for Dec. 29.

     In another case, 66-year-old Alexander Cleveland, of Mappsville, was sentenced to three years in prison with all but time served suspended for possessing cocaine on Aug. 20, 2024. He will be on supervised probation for a year and good behavior for three years.