By Caleb Hutton
BELLINGHAM — A Marietta man must serve 10 days behind bars for shouting at a cab driver and stealing her cell phone in November.
The Rommel’s Taxi driver picked up Matthew Alan Bentley, 26, from a Bellingham bar in the early morning hours of Nov. 15, 2012. Ten minutes into the ride, Bentley started yelling and calling the driver names we can’t print in the newspaper, according to charging documents filed in Whatcom County Superior Court.
She got scared and called 911, but he snatched the phone from her. The driver honked her horn at a passing state trooper. He saw the woman sprinting from the taxi. Bentley ran across the road, jumped over a guard rail and fell into thorn bushes. Bentley still had the phone, and dispatchers could hear him, over the open line, thrashing around in the bushes.
Judge Deborra Garrett ordered Bentley to cover his outstanding cab fare of $18.25. Eighty days of his sentence was suspended.
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