18-Month Jail Term Handed To Summer High-Speed Chase Suspect

OCEAN CITY — An Illinois man, arrested in July on numerous criminal and traffic charges after a two-state, high-speed chase, pleaded guilty to second-degree assault and resisting arrest in District Court in Ocean City Friday and was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

Brion Adam Kriss, 24, of Frankfort, Ill., appeared in District Court in Ocean City on Friday to face 30 total charges including second-degree assault, resisting arrest, causing harm or death to a law enforcement animal and carrying a concealed dangerous weapon along with 24 traffic charges stemming from the bizarre incident on July 17. The incident began with a hit-and-run accident in Rehoboth Beach, included a high-speed chase through Delaware beach towns and into Ocean City, where at least three more hit-and-run incidents occurred along Coastal Highway before the suspect crashed on Coastal Highway near 116th Street and then fled on foot.

Ocean City Police and allied law enforcement agencies then tracked Kriss into the marsh area behind the Gold Coast Mall where the suspect continued to fight with police and attempted to drown a police K-9 dog before ultimately being subdued with a Taser and taken into custody after a few hours. Kriss last Friday pleaded guilty to one count each of second-degree assault and resisting arrest and was sentenced to 18 months in jail. The remaining criminal counts and the 24 traffic counts were not prosecuted as a result of the plea agreement.
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