Pottawatomie Co. Man Released On Technicality After Being Arrested Twice In One Week

A man who was arrested twice in one week in Pottawatomie County is free because of a technicality.

Late last month, 37-year-old Dustin Joyner was arrested after a manhunt. He was accused along of burglarizing a business with 39-year-old Christopher Jones. 

Less than a week later, he was arrested when he was caught trying to steal an ATV by a landowner, Pottawatomie County Sheriff Michael Booth said. 

“(He) went out and confronted these individuals with a gun, seeing that one of the individuals did have a weapon. When they tried to throw the weapon away he discharged his weapon as a warning," Booth said.

Deputy Robin Opela arrested Joyner for the second time that week.

"I asked him, I said 'really?'” Opela said. “We just did this last week. What's going on?"

Problem is, after logging the 150-or so pieces of evidence against Joyner, Opela left an important detail out of her probable cause affidavit. 

“In that process, we did make maybe a small mistake,” Booth said. “We forgot to add on there that that one individual had the gun in their waistband."

"It's extremely frustrating,” Opela said. “Especially when you log so many hours of dealing with the same person and recovering an many things as we recovered. And he's out doing it again. It's extremely frustrating when you forget to put something somewhere and then he goes free."

The paperwork has been fixed and deputies tried to serve a new warrant for Joyner’s arrest Tuesday.

“He's not there,” Booth said. “He knows that we're coming. He knows that we're coming after him. So we will catch him.  There's no ifs ands or buts about that.”