When Jeremy Leinen’s Rancho El Dorado neighbors called 911 Friday night to report that he was peeping into their homes, they didn’t yet know he was on the run from the cops.
It was a few minutes before midnight when the first call came in.
Leinen “was looking into the front window of his neighbor’s house” on Carey Drive, the authorities said. Then, a second caller reported that the 40-year-old “was at his side gate, looking into his back yard.”
Leinen was already having a busy month by this stage.
A judge Dec. 10 was ruling on fighting charges lodged against Leinen last year, and prosecutors filed new resisting arrest and criminal endangerment charges against him six days later. He had recently pleaded guilty in Maricopa Municipal Court to charges stemming from a 2019 arrest after he tried to commit a $17 million fraud.
But it was one case out of Maricopa County Superior Court, one that has followed him since last summer, that led to his arrest — and tasing — last weekend on Rio Lobo Drive in Rancho El Dorado.
After leading cops in that county on a police chase in early September of 2023, Leinen in court agreed to a felony diversion program, random drug tests and counseling in lieu of being sentenced on charges of felony evading.
Leinen had already been in prison. Several years ago in Maricopa County Superior Court he had pleaded guilty to drugs charges (he was also noted in court documents to have mental health issues). But following his deferred sentence last year, he repaid the gift of fate by never showing up to any of his subsequent court dates and provoking a judge to issue not one, not two but three different bench warrants for his arrest, the most recent being filed Nov. 8.
When Maricopa police officers arrived just after midnight Saturday morning to investigate reports of a peeping Tom, they quickly realized their suspect was already a wanted man. That’s when, the officers said, Leinen started “running toward his residence, where he was tased and subsequently arrested.”
Leinen was booked into the Pinal County jail on his warrant. It seems his days of skipping court might finally be over.
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