photo by: Mugshot courtesy of the Kansas Department of Corrections

Brandon Michael Helm is pictured with the Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center.

A Lawrence man was sentenced to 10 months in prison on Friday in connection with three high-speed residential car chases that ended in crashes, and he was ordered to serve prison time in older cases in which he had been granted probation.

The man, Brandon Michael Helm, 30, pleaded no contest in June to three felony counts of fleeing and eluding police as part of a plea agreement with the state that dismissed numerous other felony and misdemeanor charges, as the Journal-World reported.

In each flee-and-elude case, two in June of 2021 and another in April of 2023, he led police through residential areas at excessively high speeds before crashing the vehicle he was driving. The flee-and-elude charge is a low-level felony.

As part of Helm’s plea agreement, he agreed that his new convictions violated his probation in two previous cases from 2019 in which he was convicted of drug distribution and attempted tampering with an electronic monitoring device. In those cases he had underlying sentences totaling 44 months, or 3.6 years, according to court records.

In total, Judge Stacey Donovan ordered Helm to serve 54 months, or 4.5 years, in prison for his new and old convictions. He has been in custody on a $30,000 cash or surety bond since his arrest in April.

Helm also has felony convictions in Douglas County for theft in 2013 and obstruction of law enforcement in 2014 and another felony theft conviction in Atchison County in 2013.