Police: National Guard Officer Who Stole Military Vehicle Was On Drugs

RICHMOND, Va. (CBSLA/AP) — An Army National Guard officer accused of stealing an armored personnel carrier (APC) from a Virginia base and leading police on a more than 60-mile chase was driving under the influence of drugs, police said Wednesday.

Joshua Philip Yabut, 29, of Richmond, was charged with eluding police and unauthorized use of a vehicle, the Virginia National Guard said in a news release.

The vehicle, which drives on tracks like a tank, was stolen Tuesday evening from Fort Pickett in Blackstone. Police chased it for about two hours at speeds as high as 40 mph before the driver stopped and surrendered near Richmond City Hall, Virginia State Police said.

Video showing the APC driving along city streets went viral on social media.

The personnel carrier was driven away during routine training at Fort Pickett and has been returned to the base, authorities said.

The vehicle wasn't equipped with any weapons, but Yabut had his personal weapon with him without any ammunition, according to the Guard.

A Twitter account believed to be Yabut's showed video of what appeared to be Yabut driving the APC.

A photo of Yabut in front of an APC similar to the one driven in Tuesday's chase was also posted to the account.

He also posted several bizarre messages, including one on June 4 that read: "wow i think i just discovered a large illegal spy operation in the us government".

Yabut - a first lieutenant assigned as company commander of the 276th Engineer Battalion - has more than 11 years of service, officials told the Associated Press. He deployed to Afghanistan from 2008 to 2009 with the Illinois National Guard.

Williams said the Guard has started an internal investigation and "will determine appropriate actions once the investigation is complete."

Michael Finneran, a spokesman for the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, said Yabut worked there in a civilian job in the office of the chief information officer from 2014-2017.

Yabut also previously worked as a developer for ZenCash, the cryptocurrency company said in a statement Wednesday.

Yabut was a developer in the project's early stages, and he "intentionally made public a method" of attacking the system, which was a "vulnerability" that he coded in, according to the statement.

Representatives of the company, which said in the statement that it had mitigated the vulnerability, didn't immediately respond to further questions from The Associated Press.

Yabut was being held at the Richmond jail. An arraignment hearing was scheduled for Wednesday.

(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)