Menahga woman sentenced to 20-months for pursuit while 9-months pregnant

Detroit Lakes, Minn. (KDLM) – A Menahga woman was sentenced 20 months in prison for felony receiving stolen property stemming from a high speed chase in a stolen vehicle when she was nine-months pregnant.

According to court records, in June 2021, 35-year-old Tiffany Rivette Gross of Menahga was driving a Subaru Legacy near County Road 48 and Highway 34, east of Osage, when a deputy tried to initiate a traffic stop for speeding and running a stop sign.

Gross did not stop and sped up to speeds greater than 100 mph at led law enforcement on a 31-mile officer involved pursuit.

During the pursuit, a male party from inside the Legacy called the Wadena County emergency dispatch and told them to stop pursuing the vehicle because they were going 120 mph and law enforcement was not supposed to pursue a suspect at speeds greater than 100 mph.

Multiple attempts by dispatch to persuade the man to have the driver pull over to the side of the road failed.

A deputy then attempted a precision immobilization technique on the vehicle that also failed and a passenger began throwing items out the window in the path of the pursuing officers.

Tire deflation devices were deployed at the Highway 34 and Highway 71 intersection in Park Rapids that successfully deflated the two, driver-side tires.

After the vehicle came to a stop in a nearby alley, Gross and 30-year-old William Edward Burke fled the vehicle on foot and were apprehended a short distance away.

Gross was wanted on an active felony warrant and arrested, however, due to her late-stage pregnancy, she was transported to a nearby medical clinic. A glass pipe was found on her person and she admitted to using methamphetamine a few days before the incident.

In a plea agreement with prosecutors, felony theft and fleeing charges were dropped and she was sentenced in Becker County District Court on Sept. 6 to 20 months in prison with credit for 14 and a half months already served.