First he tried to swim away from the police.
Then he escaped authorities by slipping out of the Howard County General Hospital.
Now he?s accused of skipping out on his latest court date.
Joaquin Deshaun Leycock, 29, of Columbia, is still on the run, police said Tuesday, after a Howard County Circuit Court judge issued a bench warrant for his arrest.
Judge Lenore Gelfman issued the warrant after Leycock failed to appear for a violation of probation hearing for a previous drug charge.
Leycock?s public defender, Samuel Truette, told Gelfman the escapee has had no contact with him recently.
“I have not heard from Mr. Leycock,” he said.
Gelfman told attorneys that she had not ordered incarceration for Leycock at an earlier May 16 violation of probation hearing because he had pledged to her that he was not using drugs.
“The court was trying to give Mr. Leycock a break,” she said. “He insisted that he was clean.”
Howard County police said Leycock fled from them twice earlier this month after a police officer stopped him with drugs in his car.
At about 11:45 p.m. July 6, an officer said he observed Leycock speeding in his vehicle in the area of Snowden River Parkway and Dried Earth Road in Columbia.
The officer stopped the car and saw drugs inside the vehicle, police said.
Leycock ran from the officer and jumped into a nearby pond, where he began to drown, causing the officer to jump into the water and rescue Leycock from the bottom, police said.
An ambulance took Leycock to Howard County General Hospital, where he was found to have numerous serious medical complications from his near-drowning.
Police said they were notified July 9 by the hospital that he had left.
Leycock has been charged with possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute, possession of a controlled dangerous substance and making a false statement to a police officer. Leycock also faces multiple traffic-related charges.
