A second suspect recently pleaded guilty to stealing $1,300 worth of alcohol from the South Church Street ABC store and leading law enforcement on a series of car chases last year.

According to court records, 35-year-old Christopher Cheek of South Boston pleaded guilty to two felony counts of grand larceny and a felony charge of eluding police for his role in the March 14, 2024, theft. He’s scheduled for sentencing on April 16.

He was scheduled for a two-day jury trial to begin Feb. 18 but instead accepted a plea agreement that day under which a felony charge of carjacking and a misdemeanor reckless driving charge were not prosecuted.

Cheek was one of two suspects charged with the crime. Police accused Cheek of participating alongside 42-year-old Tia Browne of Newport News in the theft and then fleeing the scene with her.

Court records show Browne was sentenced to two years in prison after she pleaded guilty in August to grand larceny, eluding police and failing to report a motor vehicle crash. Police said Browne fled the scene of the theft and led them on a nearly hour-long chase that resulted in her colliding with, and injuring the occupants of, an uninvolved vehicle at Benns Church Boulevard and South Church Street. She fled northwest toward the Isle of Wight-Surry county line where she was apprehended. 

Police said Cheek fled on foot following Browne’s capture and evaded arrest for roughly nine hours despite a coordinated search by Smithfield Police, the Isle of Wight County Sheriff’s Office, Virginia State Police and the Windsor Police Department that included K9s.

The mayhem resumed the morning of March 15 last year when the Sheriff’s Office received a call about a man, whom police identified as Cheek, sleeping in the back of someone’s vehicle at a home in Rushmere. Before deputies could arrive, Cheek stole a nearby car that was unoccupied but left running and led police on another 15-mile chase east to the Isle of Wight-Suffolk line. About 20 minutes after crossing the Suffolk city line, a license plate reader camera captured an image of the same vehicle reentering Isle of Wight, prompting a third and final chase that ended in the parking lot of the Smithfield Hardee’s on South Church Street.

The non-prosecuted carjacking charge pertained to Cheek’s alleged attempt to carjack an elderly woman in the Hardee’s parking lot upon exiting the stolen vehicle.

The March 14, 2024, theft was one of at least 20 larcenies reported at the Smithfield store over the past two years, though it’s a much smaller number of incidents than seen at ABC stores in Hampton Roads larger cities.