Ward man admits to damaging jail, going to prison for third time

A 24-year-old Ward man who shot himself in the groin is going to prison for the third time for the bullets he had for the gun and later repeatedly breaking windows in his cell in the Pulaski County jail.

Sentencing papers filed Wednesday show Austin Drake Grady has pleaded guilty to two counts of impairing operations at a vital facility and three counts of first-degree criminal mischief in exchange for a five-year sentence imposed by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims.

The plea agreement negotiated by deputy prosecutor Rafael Gallagher and public defender Jordan Compton allows for the sentence to run concurrently with the 5-year federal prison sentence Grady received in December from U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson after pleading guilty to being a felon in possession of ammunition.

Court records show Grady was on parole in September 2019 when Jacksonville police, investigating a report about gunshots, found Grady on Gum Street, wounded in the leg and groin.

Grady, a former Jacksonville resident, told officers that he shot himself while pulling out his gun to show a friend, and witnesses directed officers to the pistol in a nearby trash can. Because of his injuries, Grady wasn’t arrested for another two weeks, and federal authorities indicted him in March 2020.

Grady broke the window in his jail cell three different times between Nov. 29 and Dec. 31, telling deputies at one point that he planned to keep breaking windows until he was placed in federal custody, court filings show. Each time he broke a window, the jail had to be put on lockdown for repairs and the jail staff had to move Grady into a different cell.

Jail records show that he has been at the jail since his original October 2019 arrest.

Court records show that Grady has been on probation or parole continuously since April 2016 after pleading to a theft charge for stealing a sport utility vehicle from Sherwood.

After receiving further theft convictions in White and Lonoke counties, Grady was sentenced to his first term in prison — a two-year sentence — in January 2017 after he stopped meeting with his probation officer and failed to pay $1,282 in restitution and $1,750 in fines.

His second prison sentence came in August 2018 when Grady pleaded guilty to robbery, theft and drug possession for his role in beating a Jacksonville woman, Courtney Fay, in February 2018, to force her to give up her bank account pin number.

He received a three-year prison sentence with another two years suspended. Co-defendant Kelsey Danille Luneau, 22, of Jacksonville received 5 years on probation after pleading guilty to robbery and theft.

Grady also pleaded guilty to impairing operations and criminal mischief while in jail waiting for the robbery case to be resolved after breaking the sprinkler in his cell in June 2018, forcing authorities to shut down the fire-suppression system for about four hours for repairs, court records show.