Man arrested after fleeing deputy at nearly 100 mph in Palm Desert

A man who refused to pull over for a sheriff’s deputy Thursday led deputies on a chase at nearly 100 mph before briefly getting away — but eventually being arrested hiding in a bedroom closet in Palm Desert.

The incident began around 5:26 a.m. when a motorcycle deputy attempted to pull over a vehicle for speeding at Fred Waring Drive and Cook Street in Indian Wells, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.

But Sgt. Don Olson said the man, later identified as 38-year-old Paul Claudio Piermartiri of Palm Desert, refused to stop. Piermartiri fled from the deputy, reaching speeds of nearly 100 mph and driving westbound in the eastbound lanes of Fred Waring Drive at Portola Avenue. The deputy lost sight of the vehicle, but later found it in the 44-500 block of San Pascual Avenue in Palm Desert, a little over a mile west of where the chase started.

Deputies surrounded the residence and ordered the occupants to come outside, according to the release. After hours without a response, deputies obtained a search warrant and, with help from the Special Enforcement Bureau, entered the house and found Piermartiri hiding in a bedroom closet.

He “was uncooperative,” Olson said, but with assistance from a sheriff’s K-9, deputies took Piermartiri into custody and booked him into the John J. Benoit Detention Center in Indio.

Piermartiri was booked on suspicion of felony evading, resisting or delaying an officer and possession of an unregistered firearm by a felon, as well as for violating the terms of his post-release community supervision on an earlier case, the sheriff’s department said.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Man arrested after fleeing deputy at nearly 100 mph in Palm Desert