A Laurel man who led local and state police on a chaotic chase in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in February was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison, according to the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office.
Flavio Lanuza, 27, pleaded guilty in September to second-degree assault on a law enforcement officer, “fleeing and eluding a marked police vehicle by failing to stop [a] vehicle resulting in bodily injury” and 11 counts of failure to return and remain at the scene of an accident in connection with the Feb. 16 incident, according to the state’s attorney’s office.
Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Sharon Burrell sentenced Lanuza to 10 years in prison as well as an additional three years and 60 days, which will run concurrent to the 10-year sentence, the state’s attorney’s office said Thursday in a statement.
Maria Mena, Lanuza’s attorney, was not immediately available for comment when MoCo360 called her Silver Spring office Thursday afternoon.
Lanuza also is facing charges in Prince George’s County stemming from the incident that resulted in one driver, a Maryland state trooper and a Montgomery County police officer being transported to area hospitals due to injuries.
A chaotic chase
According to authorities, state police officers responded shortly before 5 p.m. Feb. 16 to a report of a hit-and-run involving four vehicles on the inner loop of the Beltway near the Greenbelt Metro station in Prince George’s County, according to state police.
Lanuza, the driver of one of the four vehicles, exited his car, allegedly stole a Maryland State Highway Administration tow truck that had responded to the incident and then struck two other vehicles as he fled in the truck, according to authorities.
State troopers from multiple area barracks, along with police helicopters, searched for the truck, locating it at 5:50 p.m. in the area of Briggs Chaney Road at Greenmount Road in Calverton, near the border with Prince George’s County, according to state police.
When officers tried to use a rolling roadblock to stop the truck, Lanuza intentionally collided with a marked state police car and then drove away, traveling on Gracefield Road in Silver Spring, charging documents stated.
Later, as Lanuza was exiting a gas station parking lot on East Randolph Road, he intentionally struck another state police vehicle, pushing it more than 50 feet, according to charging documents. The trooper in the car was injured in the collision and transported to a nearby hospital, charging documents said.
Lanuza then entered traffic, traveling in the wrong direction, and hit as many as eight vehicles on Route 29, charging documents said.
Ultimately, the tow truck became stuck in “soft ground” near a gas station in the 10700 block of Columbia Pike (Route 29) in Silver Spring, according to police and charging documents.
Lanuza was taken into custody around 6:30 p.m. and was transported to Suburban Hospital in Bethesda for the treatment of his injuries, state police said.
On Feb. 29, Montgomery County District Court Judge Harry Reed III ordered that Lanuza be held without bond at the county correctional facility in Boyds.
“This is one of the most extreme dangers that I’ve seen in this community, maybe ever,” Reed said during the hearing held in the Rockville court.
During the hearing, Lanuza’s attorney argued that he should not be held without bond and should receive mental health treatment because “it’s so apparent that this is someone who is showing symptoms of having a mental health crisis.”
She said that in the week leading up to the incident, Lanuza’s family observed that he was non-verbal and frequently pacing, which she said were symptoms of mental illness. She also noted that Lanuza, who immigrated from Nicaragua three years ago, has no criminal history in the U.S.
After the February bond hearing, county State’s Attorney John McCarthy noted Reed “very appropriately held the defendant in this case without bond.”
MoCo360 reporter Elia Griffin and former MoCo360 reporter Courtney Cohn contributed to this story.
