URBANA — A former Mahomet man charged with several crimes who had eluded authorities for almost eight months is back in the Champaign County Jail.
Carson Kasbergen, 25, wanted on weapons, drug and aggravated battery to a police officer charges, among other crimes, was arrested Jan. 17 in Montrose, Ark.
U.S. Marshals had been looking for him since late September when he had been sentenced in his absence in Champaign County to three years in prison for fleeing from Mahomet police back in 2020. A month later, another Champaign County judge resentenced Kasbergen to two years in prison for growing cannabis in his Mahomet home in 2019. He wasn’t there to hear that sentence, either.
The U.S. marshals received information in mid-January that Kasbergen might be working in Montrose, a small southeastern Arkansas town about 20 miles north of the Louisiana border, with a population of about 243.
That information proved to be true and Kasbergen was taken into custody and transported back to Urbana, arriving just after 4 a.m. Wednesday.
Appearing before Judge Brett Olmstead via video Wednesday afternoon, Kasbergen said that his father had hired an attorney for him since his previous attorney, Steve Sarm, left the practice of law last year before all of Kasbergen’s cases were resolved.
In April 2022, it appeared that Sarm had worked out a plea agreement with Assistant State’s Attorney Dan Reynolds to dispose of Kasbergen’s five cases. However, on April 18, Sarm, appearing with Kasbergen for the last time together, informed Judge Randy Rosenbaum that Kasbergen had changed his mind about the guilty plea and the cases were continued to June 1.
On that day, Sarm said he’d been trying unsuccessfully for several days to reach Kasbergen. Sarm told the judge he had left numerous requests for a call on a number answered with the message: “The person you have called has ADHD or has lost his phone or is engaged in some other activity. Leave a message.”
Sarm told the judge then he was concerned about Kasbergen, who had been attending substance abuse self-help groups “religiously” and had made “substantial progress.” Sarm had won continuances for his client previously by telling the judge that Kasbergen was in residential treatment for substance abuse in Florida.
On Wednesday, Olmstead informed Kasbergen that while he was away he had been sentenced to prison in two cases.
In one case, a jury convicted him in June in absentia of aggravated fleeing from police, driving under suspension and disorderly conduct for phoning in a false report to police that his Lamborghini had been stolen on Sept. 14, 2020. He was later sentenced to three years in prison.
In the other case, the first-offender probation he initially received in August 2020 for growing cannabis in the basement of his Ashford Court home was revoked based on his fleeing from police. Rosenbaum resentenced him in October to two years for that, to be served concurrently with the three-year fleeing sentence. Because the new attorney was unable to appear Wednesday, Olmstead set another court date for Feb. 16.
Kasbergen still faces charges in three cases, the most serious of which stems from his arrest on March 10, 2021, at a car detailing business in Champaign. On that day, Karsbergen allegedly committed aggravated battery by breaking a police officer’s nose as he was being arrested for allegedly having an assault rifle and cannabis intended for sale in his vehicle.
He also has an unresolved DUI case from August 2019 and an unresolved misdemeanor disorderly conduct for allegedly exposing himself to a Mahomet neighbor in September 2020.
