A 27-year-old Wildwood man faced a jury earlier this month whose members found him guilty of a 2015 carjacking that ended in a crash in front of Freedom Pointe in The Villages.
Derrick Lorenzo Hayes had attempted to rob a SunTrust bank in Marion County at about noon Oct. 29, 2015 and was on the run. At about 12:30 p.m., Hayes – at gunpoint – climbed into a Stonecrester’s SUV at the Circle K service station near The Villages Regional Hospital and led Sumter County sheriff’s deputies on a 10-minute chase at speeds of up to 80 miles per hour. He rolled the SUV and crashed into a Villager’s minivan before fleeing on foot. He was apprehended two minutes later.
In a one-day trial Sept. 12 in Sumter County Court, a jury found him guilty of armed carjacking, possession of a firearm by a felon and carrying a concealed weapon.
Sentencing is set for Oct. 29.
Hayes, who already had a lengthy criminal history, has been lodged at the Sumter County Detention Center since his arrest in 2015. In 2016, he was charged with attacking a fellow inmate at the jail. That case is still pending in Sumter County Court.
