Get-away driver sentenced to prison

The driver involved in a December car chase that followed two rural burglaries has been ordered by a Leavenworth County District Court judge to serve a prison term.

On Friday, Steven R. Higgins, 24, Kansas City, Kan., was sentenced to 29 months in prison on a charge of residential burglary and two counts of criminal damage to property.

The sentence will be served after Higgins completes a sentence for which he already was on parole.

In addition, Higgins was ordered to pay $152 in court costs and roughly $2,900 in restitution.

Higgins and two other Kansas City, Kan., men were arrested in connection with the burglaries and the car chase. The two passengers were apprehended while fleeing on foot from the car. Higgins later turned himself in to authorities.

One of the passengers, 20-year-old Mark A. Parra, was scheduled to be sentenced Friday with Higgins, but his sentencing was continued to 9 a.m. this Friday.

A second passenger, a 16-year-old juvenile, will have his trial at 1 p.m. Feb. 22.