Columbus man faces almost 40 charges after claiming to be a federal agent, police say
Robert Allen Earhart Jr.’s life fell apart after he was charged with killing his infant daughter in 2015, accelerating a decline in mental health and increase in drug use that led to bizarre confrontations with Columbus law enforcement, his defense attorney said Monday.
Earhart afterward made a habit of telling officers he was a federal agent working on a case, sometimes claiming he was trying to rescue his ex-wife, who he said had been abducted and held against her will.
His series of police encounters culminated May 1 in an extended car chase that started near the Muscogee County Jail, where Earhart claimed to be a DEA agent as he tried to get inmates released.
Sheriff’s deputies and Columbus police pursued Earhart north from downtown, west across the river to Phenix City, then back into north Columbus and briefly into Harris County, before he was forced to wreck out on Blackmon Road.
That and other incidents involving Earhart’s erratic behavior led to a litany of charges he faced Monday before Senior Judge Ken Followill, in a “rapid resolution” hearing to resolve all of Earhart’s cases at once.
The rapid resolution program is intended to resolve low-level criminal cases quickly to reduce jail overcrowding and allow the courts to focus resources on more complex, serious crimes. The program started in 2015.
Defense attorney Mark Post said the timing, not the evidence, is what sent Earhart to rapid resolution: His cases had been assigned to Judge Bobby Peters’ court, and that court term had ended for the year. Taking Earhart to rapid resolution was the only way to wrap his cases up without waiting for a new two-month court term to begin in January, Post said.
“It didn’t have anything to do with rapid resolution, really,” he said.
Post negotiated a deal in which Earhart pleaded to reduced charges, with some counts dismissed, and was sentenced to 10 years’ probation, during which he is to go to a rehabilitation program at the Appling Integrated Treatment Facility in Baxley, Ga., when space is available.
The wait for a bed usually is 15 to 18 weeks, Post said. Earhart will remain in the Muscogee County Jail until then.
According to Monday’s court docket, Earhart faced almost 30 misdemeanors — most of them traffic offenses from his police chase — and seven felonies, three of those impersonating a law enforcement officer. He pleaded guilty to around a dozen counts, some reduced, with the rest to be dismissed.
“My client has a substantial mental health history, judge,” Post told Followill as he tried to explain how Earhart, 35, came to be in that predicament.
The history
Back in 2015, Phenix City police charged Earhart with murder in the Jan. 17 death of his infant daughter Alaina Addison Brodka, who an autopsy showed died from blunt-force head trauma, authorities said.
The girl fatally was injured at Steeple Crest Apartments, on Riverchase Drive in the Lee County portion of Phenix City, so Earhart in 2017 went to trial before a Lee County jury in Opelika, where he was convicted only of negligent homicide, a misdemeanor.
He faced a year in jail, but soon was freed with credit for the time he served awaiting trial.
Post said the experience of being charged in his daughter’s death and jailed with other suspected killers left Earhart with post-traumatic stress disorder. Afterward his wife divorced him, and he moved in with his parents, Post said.
Authorities said Earhart started using a range of drugs, and a string of Columbus incidents followed. In court Monday, prosecutor Matt Brown recounted them:
- Sept. 8, 2018: Earhart was charged with first-degree burglary after he tried to break through the door of a house on Greenridge Drive, where police found him sitting in his car in the driveway, shirtless and sweating profusely, his eyes red. He claimed to be a DEA agent, and told officers he was trying to free a woman being held inside the residence. The woman he named was his ex-wife.
- Dec. 18, 2018: Police were called to question Earhart in downtown Columbus, where witnesses said he was behaving strangely. He told officers that a downtown automotive shop had put some “type of equipment” in his gas tank; that being blamed for his child’s death was a conspiracy; that he was a CIA informant; and that he had been recruited by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, commonly called the ATF.
- Jan. 10, 2019: A Bradford Drive resident told police Earhart kept driving by and accusing him of kidnapping his ex-wife. Earhart passed by in a black Honda while officers were there, and he told them he was a federal agent. He drove away, but later went to his parents’ home, where he pushed them after they called police on him.
The chase
Then came May 1, when the Muscogee County Sheriff got an FBI tip warning that Earhart had made some remarks indicating he could be a threat to law enforcement.
He walked into the jail “in an aggressive manner” about 9 p.m., again claimed to be with the DEA, and ordered the release of three inmates, authorities said. Jail workers recognized him and called for deputies on patrol to respond.
Earhart left the jail in a 2014 Honda Accord, then sped away when deputies tried to pull him over at Veterans Parkway and 12th Street. The 40-minute pursuit that ensued reached speeds of more than 100 mph and involved Columbus and Phenix City police and deputies from Muscogee County, Russell County and Harris County.
By the time it was over, Earhart had so many pending charges that Post wasn’t sure they all had been consolidated into the cases resolved through Monday’s plea deal.
Though a psychological evaluation determined Earhart was competent to stand trial on the charges, he has a “psychosis” that causes the delusions of being a federal agent, Post said.
Earhart has been prescribed psychotropic medications for his illness, but remains in recovery, Post told Followill: “He has been heavily medicated…. He still has substantial mental health issues.”
This story was originally published November 26, 2019 at 8:53 AM.