Man sentenced in two-state police chase

A 25-year-old man who stole two police cars and hit an officer with a car in Camden was sentenced Thursday to 17 years in state prison.

Blake Bills of Macungie, Pa., pleaded guilty in June to carjacking and eluding police. He must serve 85 percent of his carjacking term, or more than 14 years, before being eligible for parole. He also was sentenced to eight years in prison on the eluding count, which will be served concurrently.

As part of a plea deal, prosecutors dropped the other charges Bills had been facing, said Jason Laughlin, spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office. Bills was indicted last October on a charge of attempting to kill a police officer by hitting him with a car, aggravated assault, and other charges. He broke one of the officer's legs.

Bills admitted taking an empty police car around 9:50 a.m. March 5, 2013, driving it into a police officer, picking up his girlfriend, Shayna Sykes, and then driving around Camden, into Pennsauken, and back.

The couple then crossed the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, chased by police the whole way.

Bills pleaded guilty in October to a litany of charges in Philadelphia. A judge in Pennsylvania sentenced him in November to 21/2 to 10 years.

Bills was arrested after the police chase, when the car he and Sykes were in hit a house at Seventh and Norris Streets in North Philadelphia. He was caught as he attempted to run, according to statements to police and testimony.

Sykes then jumped into a Philadelphia police car at the scene, starting a second chase, prosecutors said.

She was sentenced in September to three to eight years in prison in Pennsylvania. Sykes, 24, faces charges in New Jersey of loitering to obtain a controlled substance, receiving stolen property, attempted auto theft, and related charges. A trial is pending on those charges.

Bills will serve out his Pennsylvania sentence before being transferred to New Jersey to serve that sentence, Laughlin said, and will not receive credit for time served.