Photo: KTW file

Kamloops provincial court

An identity thief who led Mounties on a short-lived high speed chase in a Tesla has been sentenced to two years in prison.

Jefrey Brian Vinluan, 38, pleaded guilty Thursday in Kamloops provincial court to charges of failing to stop for police, identity theft, impersonation and uttering a forged document.

Court heard Vinluan was driving a black Tesla Model Y on Highway 1 near Lytton on Feb. 21, 2024, when a Mountie heading the other direction in an unmarked vehicle clocked him for speeding.

“When the officer turned around and attempted to conduct a traffic stop, he describes the vehicle as accelerating away and fleeing at a high rate of speed — his visual estimate was 180 km/h,” Crown prosecutor Oliver Potestio said in court.

The Tesla crashed a few moments later, and Vinluan was arrested while walking away from the scene.

He tried giving a fake name and fake ID to police. A subsequent search of the Tesla, which was a rental, turned up two laptops, a card scanner, stolen IDs and banking cards, as well as a high-end document printer that makes government-quality IDs.

“It is a sophisticated printer capable of manufacturing ID cards,” Potestio said. “It’s not used in Canada but it is used by some jurisdictions in the States for printing IDs.”

Court heard Vinluan has 43 convictions on his criminal record, many for similar identity-related offences. Potestio said he’s made “a criminal career” out of such offences.

Defence lawyer Lindsay Neurauter said Vinluan has struggled with addiction since he was a teenager. He was clean for most of 2023 but relapsed late in the year, which set the stage for the Lytton incident.

Kamloops provincial court Judge Stella Frame went along with a joint submission for two years less a day in prison, plus two years of probation.

Once he is given credit for time served, Vinluan will have a little less than eight months remaining on his jail sentence.