The Iowa State Department of Public Safety received an arrest warrant Tuesday for Lee James Bettis, who is accused of committing a carjacking on Feb. 24.

Bettis, 30, of 115 Peach Lane, is accused of robbery in the second degree for allegedly stealing the car of Sunwoo Koo, freshman in biophysics.

While Koo was warming up his car in Lot 62 south of Buchanan Hall, “a man approached him, forced him from the car and drove away,” DPS officials said. Capt. Rob Bowers told the Daily that Koo had been pulled from the driver’s seat “as if he wasn’t getting out of the car fast enough.”

The car, a white 1988 Chevrolet Beretta, was later recovered near Mary Greeley Medical Center in Ames.

Bettis is now being held by the Clinton County Sheriff’s Office in Clinton, Iowa, for charges unrelated to the ISU incident.

Clinton County Deputy Perry Lamp said Bettis was booked March 5 on accusations of theft in the second degree, theft in the fifth degree, false reports to law enforcement, eluding law enforcement and operating while intoxicated, third offense.

The charges Bettis faces in Clinton County stem from an auto theft, according to Bowers.

After the Feb. 24 carjacking, Bowers said, DPS put out a bulletin asking for information on related cases, and the breakthrough came last week.

“We were tracking other cases and made the connection,” Bowers said.

Bettis will be held in Clinton until the situations there are settled, Lamp said.

“We have to wait for the date of his next appointment at the courthouse,” he said, adding that Bettis should give his deposition within the next two weeks.

Lamp said there are two ways the case could play out.

“If he’s sentenced to county time, he’ll serve his time … and then [ISU DPS] will pick him up from prison,” he said. “If he’s found not guilty, we’ll go ahead and contact [DPS], and then they’ll come pick him up.”

Bowers said Bettis will not be released by the Clinton County deputies without facing the charge on the books in Ames, which is a Class C felony punishable by a maximum 10-year jail term and $10,000 fine.

Bettis is not currently an ISU student, but Bowers said he might have been a recent graduate.