The third of five suspects in a high-speed chase that ended with the shooting death of one of the suspects by police entered a guilty plea in Carbon County court on Tuesday.

Cedric Lamont Cason, 39, of Lauderhill, Florida, appeared before Judge Joseph J. Matika and pleaded guilty to one count of receiving stolen property as a misdemeanor three.

Matika immediately sentenced him to serve six to 12 months in the county prison. However, Cason will not spend any more time in jail as he was given credit for 259 days already served.

He has been in prison since the day of the incident, Dec. 18, 2018. He will not be released until the adult probation office prepares a pre-parole plan, verifying where he will live when he’s released from prison.

Cason was one of five people in a van in a high-speed chase that ended in Franklin Township.

According to court documents, the suspects were found with $10,517.29 in cash, and during the chase, numerous stolen bank checks were thrown from the vehicle.

“It is believed that the occupants of the fleeing vehicle may be involved in a nationwide theft ring known as Felony Lane Gang,” police wrote in a search warrant affidavit for the men’s phones.

The Felony Lane Gang which is believed to have originated in Fort Lauderdale, is believed to have stolen millions of dollars using stolen checks and identification.

The checks were found were reported stolen after separate break-ins. The victims were both women who said someone broke into their vehicles and stole their purses.

Police learned that a woman had cashed three of the stolen checks the day before the chase. The woman used the ID from one of the victims to cash two checks, and it appeared she altered her appearance to look more like the victim to fool the bank teller.

Fifteen checks were recovered.

One of the van occupants, Danny Washington, 27, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, died the same night of the incident at St. Luke’s Allentown Campus of a gunshot wound. The Lehigh County coroner ruled the death a homicide.

Washington was shot by a police officer, whose identity has never been released. Carbon County District Attorney, Jean A. Engler, following an investigation, ruled the shooting accidental.

Others in the van with Washington and Cason were Creshaun Demetrick Caldwell, 23; Mitchell Lawrence Knight, 27; and Tyrone Wesley Parker Jr., 19, all of Florida. Caldwell and Parker are from the Fort Lauderdale area, while Knight is from Sun City.

On May 14, Caldwell entered a plea to a receiving charge and was sentenced to time-served (146 days) to one year in jail and ordered he render 25 hours of community service.

On June 17, Parker entered a guilty plea before Matika to a charge of receiving stolen property. He was sentenced to serve six to 12 months in prison and render 25 hours of community service. He was given credit for 181 days already served and paroled.

Knight is scheduled for a pretrial conference with the DA’s office on Dec. 5. He also has a suppression motion pending in the case which is scheduled for Dec. 17 before Matika.

Case history

According to an affidavit filed in the case, Knight was the driver of the minivan. He was identified as the driver after a KFC receipt was found in the vehicle and surveillance footage showed Knight driving the minivan earlier that day.

According to state police, the shooting occurred at 5:25 p.m. when Washington was struggling with a municipal officer. Through a right-to-know request, the Times News learned that the police departments involved in the altercation with Washington were from Lehighton and Palmerton borough forces.

The struggle came after police successfully disabled the white Chrysler minivan, which reached speeds up to 90 mph during a 17-minute chase across the county.

The minivan came to a stop on Interchange Road (Route 209) near Court Street in Franklin Township. The suspects refused to get out of the vehicle, prompting multiple police officers to approach the vehicle to take them into custody.

The chase began after an officer with Beaver Meadows Police Department stopped the minivan for violations.

During the traffic stop, the van fled and a pursuit began. Multiple local police departments including Weatherly and Nesquehoning joined in the pursuit as it traveled down Route 93 south, onto Route 209 north through the boroughs of Jim Thorpe and Lehighton, and eventually across the Thomas J. McCall Memorial Bridge into Franklin Township, where police disabled the vehicle.

As the officer was trying to take Washington into custody, troopers said the two struggled and bumped into an officer’s service weapon which discharged, striking Washington.

DA finding

Engler has declined to identify the officer whose firearm fired the fatal shot. She said, “In a criminal investigation, if any citizen were the subject of a criminal investigation and no charges were filed we would not release the name.” She added that she is following the best practices set by the Pennsylvania District Attorney’s Association for officer-involved shootings.

Engler’s report added, “It all happened so quickly.”

Engler said that all the police accounts and the witness accounts were the same.

“We were lucky to have witnesses whose descriptions were identical to the officer who was bumped,” Engler said.

She said Washington resisted arrest and they struggled.

“They collided with another officer whose weapon was drawn and it discharged. It all happened very quickly,” Engler said.

An independent investigation was conducted by state police and tests on the officer’s gun were conducted.

The report said, “Based on a careful review of the copious evidence gathered during the investigation … my formal ruling is that the shooting was accidental. Consequently, there is no basis to file charges against the officer whose weapon discharged and none will be filed. It is unfortunate that Mr. Washington lost his life during this encounter, but it is also abundantly clear from both civilian and police eye witnesses that Mr. Washington’s own conduct in failing to comply and physically struggle with the officers contributed to his being shot and killed.”