Nude parolee found in stolen boat on lake gets 7 years in prison
A parolee from Hope arrested last year after he was found nude inside a stolen and vandalized boat on Lake Hamilton was sentenced to seven years in prison last week after pleading guilty to felony charges.
Preston Klein Leonard, 26, who is classified as a habitual offender, pleaded guilty Monday, July 18, in Garland County Circuit
Court to felony charges of theft of property over $25,000 and was sentenced to seven years; and to first-degree criminal mischief and was sentenced to six years, to run concurrently with each other and the revocation of his parole.
Leonard was also ordered to pay $1,000 in restitution and $190 in court costs. He was previously convicted in 2017 of residential burglary and in 2020 for two counts of first-degree criminal mischief, theft of property over $25,000, commercial burglary, breaking or entering, and theft of property over $5,000, all in Hempstead County, and sentenced to 10 years in prison, with five years suspended, but was later paroled.
According to the probable cause affidavit, on Nov. 12, 2021, shortly before 10 a.m., Garland County sheriff’s Deputy Chandler Overton was dispatched to the 100 block of Ledgerwood Road regarding a stolen boat that had been recovered and arrived to find Hot Springs police on the scene.
Officers told him a nude man, later identified as Leonard, had been found on the boat “upside down between the steering console and the captain’s seat.”
The boat, a white Veranda pontoon boat valued at $25,000, had been stolen from a residence on Britt Lane. The owner later determined approximately $4,000 in damages had been sustained by the boat, including multiple seats being torn out, and other seats “ripped up.”
The owner stated he checked his security camera after being contacted by the sheriff’s office and observed the boat to have gone missing at around 4 a.m. that day.
Leonard was initially taken to National Park Medical
Center by LifeNet to be checked medically with a sheriff’s deputy assigned to guard him until he was released and booked into the Garland County Detention Center shortly after 11 a.m. that day where he remained in custody in lieu of $7,500 bond.
Leonard pleaded not guilty to charges on Feb. 7 and his earlier parole was revoked and he was returned to prison until he was brought back to Garland County for his disposition hearing last week.