A Lady Lake man was arrested Sunday after a bizarre chase that saw him make an obscene gesture at a deputy, lose a jon boat in traffic, nearly hit several homeless people and eventually get caught by a K-9 dog.
The ordeal lasted more than three hours, but in the end, 41-year-old Darren Michael Birman was arrested and charged with driving with a suspended license, wanton disregard while fleeing or eluding and resisting arrest without violence.
It all started about at about 9:20 a.m. Sunday when a Lake County deputy was called to a Lady Lake home, located at 40049 Palm Street, to investigate a possible stolen truck and boat.
When the deputy arrived, he saw Michael Birman standing in the fenced-in backyard, moving something in the bed of a newer model white GMC truck that was parked beside an older jon boat that was lying on the ground.
Birman told the deputy he had purchased the boat from a friend named Terry, but he didn’t know who owned the truck. When asked how the truck and boat got to the house, Birman told the deputy he drove them there. But when asked to clarify his statement, Birman said, “No, I didn’t drive. My license isn’t good. I never said I drove,” the report says.
When the deputy asked if he could come into the backyard to check identification numbers to see if truck and boat were stolen, Birman said he’d have to get permission from the homeowner, Margaret Turner.
After Birman went into the house to retrieve his identification, Turner gave the deputy permission to check the vehicles, but quickly rescinded it after Birman became irate and yelled at her to make him leave, the report says.
After leaving the home, the deputy discovered that the registration numbers weren’t listed as stolen. The truck was registered in Arizona to U-Haul and the boat belonged to a female at a Lake County address.
Attempts to reach the boat owner were unsuccessful, but a check with U-Haul showed that the truck was last rented in Jacksonville and was listed as stolen June 2 in the company’s internal system. But the Duvall County Sheriff’s Office was unable to locate a stolen vehicle report for the vehicle.
A short time later, while the deputy was parked nearby trying to call the U-Haul rental office in Jacksonville, Birman drove by, with the boat loaded in the back of the truck. Knowing that Birman’s license was suspended, the deputy attempted to make a traffic stop on Oakridge Road. But Birman stuck his head and left arm out the window, “extended his middle finger” and fled at a high rate of speed.
After disengaging from the attempted traffic stop, the deputy drove up on several people standing in the roadway along Palm Street, just east of Grays Airport Road, where the boat had come out of the truck. Motorists said they had to brake hard and swerve to miss the boat as Birman headed south on Grays Airport Road.
A few minutes later, another deputy saw Birman stopped in the middle of Picciola Road near Eureka Road in Leesburg. The deputy said that Birman was wrapping something around his head as though he was trying to conceal his face.
As the deputy turned around, Birman sped off and drove into the parking lot of the Fast Stop Superette at 3702 Picciola Road, and then into the wooded area behind the store that’s known to contain homeless camps. The deputy followed Birman down a dirt path into the woods as he drove through multiple campsites, causing several people to jump out of the way. He then stopped the truck and fled on foot.
After a K-9 deputy and his dog located Birman and took him into custody, he told deputies that he purchased the boat from the friend named Terry, who lives “somewhere in Marion County.” He also said that he paid a man $100 at a Jacksonville Motel 6 to use the truck to pick up the boat and take it back to Lake County.
Birman couldn’t provide any other information about the man who originally had the truck, and at the time of his arrest, it still wasn’t reported as stolen.
On the way to the Lake County Jail, Birman boasted about his driving skills and his ability to elude deputies, the report says. He was held on $17,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court July 2 at 8:30 a.m.