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Officers responding to a suspicious-persons complaint in the Ulster County town of Saugerties in late August said they found local resident Christopher P. Rega, 31, staggering down a street in the middle of the afternoon.
A quick check turned up some drugs in his backpack, Saugerties police said in a release.
They also found a warrant for his arrest issued by a Superior Court judge in Hackensack.
The 5-foot-9-inch, 160-pound Rega has a lengthy criminal record dating back more than a decade in New York, New Jersey and Florida. Reported offenses include robbery, reckless endangerment, disorderly intoxication and drug possession.
Regal led New Paltz, NY police on a wild chase in a stolen truck in 2015 -- running over a pedestrian's foot, crashing into two parked vehicles and smashing through the front of a sporting goods store.
He ended up serving nearly four years in prison before being released in late 2020, according to New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision records.
Rega had been wanted on a theft charge out of Bergen County when Saugerties police said they arrested him this past January. He was extradited and sent to the county jail in Hackensack, where he remained for three weeks before being released in March.
A Superior Court judge in Bergen County issued a no-bail warrant for Rega's arrest in April on a probation violation in connection with the theft charge, records show.
Saugerties police said they caught up with him again on Aug. 31.
Rega was extradited and returned to the Bergen County Jail on Wednesday, Sept. 7. A judge subsequently ordered that he remain there pending a resolution of the probation violation.
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