By JAMES BELL
Hays Post

A Hays resident was arrested over the weekend after reportedly fleeing a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper in Rooks County.

At 11:05 p.m. Friday, a trooper with the Kansas Highway Patrol attempted to stop a 2002 Dodge Stratus with a Kansas tag on County Road CC in Rooks County, according to Trooper Tod Hileman.

The vehicle fled the trooper going eastbound for an unknown amount of time before the car crashed.

The suspect then fled the crash and was later arrested by the KHP, Hileman said.

The KHP identified the suspect as Scott Finnesy, 39, Hays.

Finnesy was charged with transporting an open container, flee and eluding law enforcement after an accident, and failure to stop at the scene of an accident, along with six moving violations. He was transferred to Rooks County jail.

Finnesy has two prior convictions in Kansas. In 2011, he was convicted for attempting to elude a law enforcement officer and driving while suspended.

In 2015, he was sentenced for attempted aggravated intentional battery causing great bodily harm. Finnesy served over a year in the Ellsworth Correctional Facility related to that conviction.

He was released from the facility in January 2017 and his sentence expired in January of last year.